LETTERS 



TO THE 



RT. REV. JOHN HUGHES, 



ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF NEW-YORK, 



BY 

KIRWAN, 



NEW-YORK: 
LEAVITT, TROW & CO, 19! BROADWAY. 

1 8 4 8 . 



/*48 



Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1847, bf 

SAMUEL I. PRIME, 
in the Clerk's Offioe tot the Southern District of New-York. 

chaag* 
Univ. of Mick. 
FEB 8 



CONTENTS. 



Tage 

INTRODUCTORY NOTE .... . . - 5 

LETTER I. 
The writer's respects to the Bishop 7 

LETTER II. 

pauses of early misgivings — Priestly miracles—Purgatory — Praying to 
saints 12 

LETTER III. 

Causes of early misgivings, continued — Confession — Holy wells — Pro- 
hibiting the Bible— An incident 13 

LETTER IV. 

Transition from Popery to Infidelity — Inquiry awakened — Abstinence 
from meats — The Mass — Confession — Transubstantiation — Religion 
vanishes 30 

LETTER V. 

Popery makes the masses superstitious, the intelligent infidels — Who go 
to confession 1 — Ireland — France — Other countries — Reasons why 
Popery debases — The days of Popery numbered 37 

LETTER VI. 

Popery has degraded Ireland — Evidences of its degradation — Absen- 
teeism — Sub-letting — Tithes — The priest's cry for money . . 45 

LETTER VII. 

Reasons for not returning to the papal church — Prohibition of the 
Scriptures — The way and manner of papal worship — Ceremonial law 
•f popery — Obstructions raised between Cod and the soul . . 53 



W CONTENTS. 

LETTER VIII. 
\ 
Farther reasons for not returning to the papal chnrch — Celibacy of the 
clergy — Auricular confessions — A call on Irish papists to assert their 
rights « 

LETTER IX. 

Reasons which prevent from returning to the papal church, continued 
— Purgatory — Tran3ubstantiation 09 

LETTER X. 
Is the Church of Rome a Church of Christ ? 7B 

LETTER XI. 

The effects of Popery on Liberty, Knowledge, Happiness, True io- 
ligion 88 

LETTER Xn. 
Goaclusien of the whole matter VI 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



The pages that follow were written in the form 
of letters to Bishop Hughes, that they might readily 
gain the attention of those for whose benefit they 
are designed. The writer is a gentleman who has 
never taken any part in the Romish controversy, 
but having been educated in the Church of Rome, 
by parents of that faith, and having remained in 
that communion until mature years and patient 
thought enabled him to judge for himself, he be- 
came calmly but decidedly convinced that he must 
leave it, and seek the religion of the Bible among 
Protestants. 

In these pages, the result of his own experience 
and observation, he gives the reasons that compelled 
him to abandon the church of his fathers, and the 
reasons why he cannot return to her embrace. The 
letters are written with great courtesy, frankness 
and ability, with the sprightly humour of an Irish- 
man to an Irishman, and with an eloquence and 
earnestness that often remind us of some of the most 
celebrated passages from the Irish bar. They were 
1* 



6 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

first published in the New-York Observer, and were 
thence widely copied into other papers. They have 
been extensively sought for by Catholics who are 
beginning to inquire after the truth, and by others 
who wish to put them into the hands of those who 
are willing to read. 

The temper of the letters commends them to a 
candid perusal, and the clearness of the argument 
and illustration will carry conviction to the minds 
of those who have the independence to decide for 
themselves by the light of the Bible and common 
sense. 

The letters were furnished to me under an in- 
junction of secrecy as to the Author's name, and 
having been requested by many individuals and 
societies to give them to the public in a form for 
preservation and further circulation, it is proper to 
say that the writer's character is an abundant 
guarantee for the fidelity of all the matters of fact 
here stated, and that he is prepared to maintain 
them if they should ever be called in question. 

SAMUEL I. PRIME. 



KIRWAN'S LETTERS 

TO THE 

RIGHT REV. JOHN HUGHES, 

BISHOP OF NEW YORK. 



LETTER I. 

My dear Sir, — Although an entire stranger to 
you, I have felt for many years greatly interested 
in your history and doings ; and for the following 
reasons : 

You are the chief pastor of a very important por- 
tion of the Roman Catholic Church in this country; 
and your ecclesiastical position makes you empha- 
tically a public man. If a bishop in Mexico or 
Missouri, like many mitred priests, you might live 
unknown to fame ; but as the papal bishop of the 
Commercial Metropolis of the Western world, and 
of the most populous and wealthy diocese of your 
church in the United States, tins could not be ex- 
pected. Position, you know, has much to do with 
our public character. 

But in addition to your position, which is one of 
high influence, you possess the requisite qualifica- 



8 kirwan's letters 

tions to fill it. This is confessed by your most 
ardent opponents. By your genius, learning, and 
eloquence — by your sleepless devotion to the duties 
of your calling, you have obtained a position in the 
very first rank of the ecclesiastics of your church. 

Besides, at whatever odds, you have fought like 
a man with all your opponents. In controversies 
religious and political, you have not shunned the 
hall of debate, nor discussion through the press. 
You have taken your positions adroitly, and you 
have defended them with remarkable skill. And 
even when convinced of the utter fallacy of your 
positions and defences, I have yet sympathized with 
your manly firmness. It is in human nature to 
respect the man that with an earnest soul contends 
for what he esteems right. .And I must confess 
that as to some things, when the public voice was 
against you, your course met with my approbation. 

Besides, if public rumour is worthy of belief, you 
have forced yourself into your present position by 
the force of your talents and character, from a 
social position comparatively humble. To me this 
is not the least of the reasons why X have felt in- 
terested in your career. The men of our race have 
been what is commonly called, self-made men. The 
heroes in history have been nearly all such. It 
requires high attributes both of mind and soul to 
rise above the disadvantages of family and fortune ; 
and to take precedence of those who would fain 
believe that birth and wealth give a patent-right to 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 9 

the high places of influence. Your past history, 
unless I misunderstand it, must have had a liberaliz- 
ing influence upon you. You must look at things 
on a larger and wider scale, and through a clearer 
medium, than if you had been cradled in crimson, 
and educated in a convent. You know the dis- 
tinction between prejudice and principle — between 
what is entitled to belief, and what we have been 
educated to believe — between what is truly reason- 
able, and what is only ecclesiastically so. And I 
therefore address myself to you with a confidence 
far stronger that what I shall say kindly and truly, 
will be kindly and truly weighed, than if I ad- 
dressed myself to a priest from Maynooth or St. 
Omers, educated merely in the literature of legends 
and liturgies, and whose mind only possessed what 
was distilled into it from others. I shall address 
you not merely as a priest or bishop; but as a 
high-minded and well-educated gentleman. 

Permit me to say that there is yet another reason 
why 1 have felt interested in your career. You 
were born in Ireland, that land of noble spirits and 
of warm hearts — that sweetest isle of the ocean. 
And so was I. We are natives of the same soil. 
And although in principle, by education, and in all 
my feelings, thoroughly American, yet I take a 
great pride in the high achievements of native 
Irishmen. America has had its Montgomerys, its 
Clintons, its Emmetts, its Porters, from Ireland. Its 
sons have adorned the bar, the bench, the pulpit, 



10 kirwan's letters 

the army, the navy, the legislatures, the Congress 
of these United States. That there are multitudes 
from Ireland who are no loss to their own country, 
nor any advantage to this, cannot be denied. The 
reasons for this I may examine hereafter. But yet 
we have many fine illustrations of Irish genius, 
character and valour, all along our history. And I 
have regarded yourself as one of them, so far forth 
as, genius and force of character are concerned. 
And I have often pointed you out as an illustration 
of the high respectability which Irish character is 
capable of attaining when relieved from the burdens 
that oppress and debase it. Hence I have regarded 
as your eulogy the sneers of those who have ad- 
dressed you as " John Hughes the Gardener.'"' 
Such taunts come not from true men. 

Having said so much in reference to you, permit 
me now to say a word in reference to myself. I 
have just stated that I was born in Ireland. I may 
say to you in addition, that I was born of Roman 
Catholic parents, and received my early education 
in the full faith of that church at whose altars you 
now serve with such distinguished ability. I was 
baptized by a priest — I was confirmed by a bishop 
— I often went to confession — I have worn my 
amulets, — and I have said my Pater Nosters and 
my Hail Marys, more times than I can now enu- 
merate. When a youth none excelled me in my 
attention to Mass, nor in the performance of the 
penances enjoined by the Father confessor. And 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 11 

whatever were my occasional mental misgivings, 
I remained a true son of the church until I had 
nearly reached the years of manhood. Then, on 
as full an examination of the subject as I could 
give it, I came to the conclusion that I could not 
remain a Roman Catholic. I first became an in- 
fidel. Knowing nothing of religion but that which 
was taught me by parents and priests, and thinking 
that that was the sum of it, when that was rejected, 
infidelity became my only alternative. Subse- 
quently, by the reading of the Bible, and by the 
grace of God, I was led to embrace the religion of 
the Gospel. That religion I have now for many 
years professed, and in connection with a Protestant 
church. Unlike many who have left your commu- 
nion, I have never bitterly assailed it. I am utterly 
unknown in the list of the champions of Protestant- 
ism versus Popery. But yet some recent occur- 
rences have induced me to break a long silence, 
and to state in a series of letters addressed to your 
Right Reverence, the reasons which induced me 
to leave the Roman Catholic Church, and which 
prevent me from returning to it. Of these letters, 
this is the first. I ask of you for them a kind and 
candid perusal. 

With great respect, yours, 

KlRWAW. 



12 



LETTER II. 

Causes of early misgivings— Priestly miracles— Purgatory— Praying to saints. 

My dear Sir, — In my last letter I stated to you 
that I was born of Roman Catholic parents — that I 
was baptized and confimed in your communion — and 
that for many years I have been in connection with a 
Protestant church. I stated that, whatever were my 
occasional mental misgivings, I remained a true son 
of the church until I had nearly attained the years 
of manhood ; and that, then, on as full an examina- 
tion of the subject as I could give it, I came to the 
conclusion that I could not remain a Roman Catholic. 
Permit me in the present letter to state to you the 
causes of my early misgivings as to yours being a 
true church, and as to its holding the true faith. 

You know very well the common belief among 
the Irish peasantry that Papal priests can work mira* 
cles. Whatever may be the teaching of the prieste 
themselves upon the point, such is the belief of the 
people, a belief strongly encouraged by the conduct 
of their spiritual leaders. Hence in diseases, the 
people resort, not so much to the physician, as to the 
priest — they depend less upon the power of medi- 
cine than upon that of priestly charms. Although 
the son of intelligent parents, and educated from my 
youth for the mercantile profession, the miraculous 
power of the priest is yet associated with my earliest 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 13 

recollections of him. And, as you know full well, 
the belief that this power is possessed by their priests, 
is one of the leading causes why the Papal Irish 
bow with such entire and unmanly submission to 
liem. 

In my youth there were two things which greatly 
shook my faith in the possession of this power. There 
resided not far from my parental residence a priest, 
whose fame as a miracle- worker was known all over 
the county in which he resided. The road to his 
house (called in that country a bridle road) went by 
our door. I frequently saw, in the morning, indi- 
viduals riding by, with a little keg resting before 
them on the saddle, or a jug hanging by the horse's 
side. I often asked who they were, and where they 
were going ? I was told that they were going to 
Father C.'s to get some of their sick cured. I asked 
what was in the keg, or jug ? I was told that it was 
Irish whiskey to pay the priest for his cures. I 
asked why they went so early in the morning ? I 
was answered that unless they went early they would 
not find him sober. 

In one of the large interior towns of Ireland where 
I resided, the bishop of the diocese met his priests, 
or a part of them, once a year. This meeting was 
always held in the house where I resided, and over 
the store in which I was then a clerk. Among the 
priests that always met the Bishop was a Father B., 
whose fame as a miraclo-worker was extensive. 
He had also a reputation for learning and eloquence ; 



14 mbwan's letters 

and because of his connection with an old and 
wealthy family, exerted a wide social influence. He 
always staid with us when he came to town. About 
ten o'clock one night, after one of those meetings 
of bishop and priests, I went out to shut up the store 
windows ; and hearing a singular noise in the gut- 
ter, I went forward, and assisted a man out of the 
mire. I soon recognized it to be Father B. the mira- 
cle worker. Running in, I announced with some 
excitement to the lady of the house that Father B. 
was drunk in the street. I received for my pains a 
stunning slap on the side of the face, with this ad- 
monition, " never say again that a priest is drunk." 
I staggered under the blow, — I assisted in cleaning 
off his Reverence. I gave him his brandy next 
morning. And young as I was, my faith in miracle- 
working priests was effectually shaken. Although 
fearing to draw the conclusion, I felt it, that God 
would not bestow miraculous power upon those who 
lived a life, not of occasional, but of habitual intem- 
perance. And I would ask you, sir, whether all 
this pretension to miraculous power by your priests 
is not a gross imposition upon the people for the 
double purpose of keeping them in awe, and getting 
their money ? Let the Bishop be silent, and the 
man of sense speak, and I have no fear as to the 
answer. 

The doctrine of Purgatory, you know, sir, is one* 
of the peculiar and most cherished doctrines of your 
church. Indeed I do not know how your church 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 15 

could get along without it. My object now is not to 
reason with you about it, nor to controvert it ; but 
to state to you a few facts in reference to it that 
made, ir early life, a strong impression on my mind. 
You know that, in Ireland, the custom of the priest 
is, at a certain point in the service of the mass, to 
turn his back to the altar, and his face to the people, 
and to read a long list of the names of deceased 
persons whose souls are in purgatory, and to offer 
up a prayer for their deliverance from it. This is 
done, or used to be done, in the chapels on every 
Sabbath. To obtain the name of a deceased rela- 
tive on that magic list, the priest must be paid so 
much a year, varying, I believe, with the ability of 
the friends to pay. If the yearly payment is not 
made when due, the name of the person is erased 
from the list. A circumstance arising out of this 
custom of your church, occurring in my boyhood, is 
distinctly before me. A respectable man in our 
parish died in mid-life, leaving a widow and a large 
family of children to mourn his loss. True to her 
religious principles, and to her generous instincts, 
the widow had her husband's name placed on that 
list, and heard, with pious gratitude, his name read 
over from Sabbath to Sabbath, with a prayer offered 
for the deliverance of his soul from purgatory. 
After the lapse of two or three years, on a certain 
Sabbath, the name of her husband was omitted from 
the list. The fact filled her with mingled joy and 
fear; joy, thinking that her husband had escaped 



16 kiihvan's letters 

from purgatory ; and fear, lest she had done some- 
thing to offend the priest. On timid inquiry, she 
learned that his soul was yet in purgatory, but that 
she had forgotten to send in the yearly tax at the 
time it was due. The tax was promptly paid, and 
the name was restored on the next Sabbath. With 
this fact, sir, I am entirely conversant; for that 
widow was my own mother, who sought the release 
of the soul of my father from purgatory. Can you 
wonder, sir, that this incident made a deep impres- 
sion upon my youthful mind, or that it shook my 
faith in your whole system 1 And, as far as memory 
serves me, Father M. was an amiable man, and 
above the ordinary level of the men of his calling. 
Another fact which early impressed me in refer 
ence to purgatory was this. Your church makes a 
distinction between mortal and venial sinners. Tb* 
former go to hell for ever — the latter go to purgatory, 
" whence they are taken by the prayers and alms 
offered for them, and principally by the holy sacri- 
fice of the mass." Now I always saw that the 
most mortal sinners, that every body would say went 
to hell, could always have masses said for them as 
if they went to purgatory ; provided their friends 
could pay ; and iimt.less mortal sinners, that people 
would say went to purgatory, were sent to hell, if 
their friends could not pay for masses for them. 
And their souls were kept in purgatory for a long 
while when their friends paid promptly every year ; 
but their souls were soon prayed out whose friends 






. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 17 



could not pay long for them. Facts like these, sir, 
very early impressed my mind, and shook my faith 
in the religion of my parents and priests. And 
when, in maturer years, I could more fully consider 
them, they led me to reject religion as a fable cun- 
ningly devised by priests. 

Again ; to pray to angels and saints is a doctrine 
of your church. I am quite familiar with your ex- 
planations of it ; with the distinctions which your 
writers make to free it from idolatry. It is precisely 
the distinction which the heathen make to get rid of 
the same charge. Perhaps ere these letters are con- 
cluded I may return to this subject; I have only to 
do now with some of my early impressions in refer- 
ence to it. In our parish chapel there were a great 
many pictures of saints. W hose pictures they were 
I do not remember. But on Sabbath morning, an 
hour before mass, I have often seen the poor people, 
and even some more wealthy and refined, going on 
their knees from the one picture to the other, and 
counting their beads, and bowing before them with 
external acts of the most profound and sincere wor- 
ship. Although, then, I thought differently, I have 
ciot now a doubt but that it was idolatry. But the 
idea that struck me was this : here are some pray- 
ing to Peter, or Paul, or John ; the same pictures 
*re hung up in ten thousand chapels all over the 
world, and in all these chapels persons are praying 
to thdffiL Can these good saints hear but in one 
p 1 * »', or can they hear all ? If they can hear all, 
2* 



18 kerwan's letters. 

then they are omnipresent, — if omnipresent, they 
are gods. Thus we have as many gods as saints. 
But if they hear but in one place, then nine thou- 
sand nine hundred and ninety-nine out of the ten 
thousand are praying to an absent saint ! This one 
thought, reverend sir, very early in life impressed 
my mind, and was not the least powerful among 
the causes which led me, eventually, to reject the 
authority of your church. More of these causes in 
my next. 

With great respect, yours, 

Kirwan. 



LETTER III. 

Causes of early misgivings, continued — Confession — Holy wells — Prohibit- 
ing the Bible — An incident. 

My dear Sir, — In my last letter I commenced a 
statement to you of the causes which, in early life, 
caused my misgivings and distrust as to yours 
being a true church, and as to its holding the true 
faith. I referred to some incidents connected with 
the claims of your priests to miraculous power, with 
the doctrine of purgatory, and with praying to the 
saints. I shall now proceed with a statement of 
some more of those causes. 

The doctrine of Confession is one of the primary 
doctrines of your church. It requires every good 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 19 

papist to confess his sins to a priest at least once a 
year. If any sins are concealed, none are forgiven. 
This doctrine makes the bosom of the priest the 
repository of all the sins of all the sinners of his 
parish, who make a conscience of Confession. And 
this is one of the sources of the fearful power which 
your priests have over your people. And with this 
doctrine of Confession, is connected the power of 
the Father Confessor to grant Absolution to the con- 
fessing penitent. It is sometimes affirmed, and 
then denied, to suit circumstances, that the priest 
claims such power. But Dr. Challoner in his 
" Catholic Christian Instructed,' 5 Chap. 9th, asserts 
this power, and on what he deems scriptural autho- 
rity. And I never knew an individual who came 
from Confession, with the privilege of partaking of 
the Communion, who did not feel and believe that 
his sins were forgiven him. And if they were not 
immediately forgiven, they would be on the per- 
formance of the prescribed penances. You, sir, 
will not say, that I either misstate or misrepresent 
the doctrine. 

Now for some of my early impressions upon this 
subject. Father M. held frequently his confessions 
at our house. He sat in a dark room up stairs with 
one or more candles on a table before him. Those 
going to Confession followed each other on their 
knees from the front door, through the hall, up the 
stairs, and to the door of the room. When one 



20 kihwan's letters 

came out of the confessing-room another entered. 
My turn came — I entered the room, from which the 
light of day was excluded, and bowed myself before 
the priest. He made over me the sign of the cross, 
and after saying something in Latin, he ordered me 
to commence the detail of my sins. Sucn was my 
fright that my memory soon failed in bringing up 
past delinquencies. He would prompt me, and 
ask, did you do this thing, or that thing ? I would 
answer yes, or no. And when I could say no more 
he would wave his hand over me and again utter 
some words in Latin, and dismiss me. Through 
this process I often went, and never without feeling 
that my sins were forgiven. Sins that burdened 
me before, were now disregarded. The load of 
guilt was gone. And I often felt, when prompted 
to sin, that I could commit it with impunity, as I 
could soon confess it and secure its pardon. And 
this, sir, is the fearful and fatal effect of your doc- 
trine of Confession and Absolution upon millions of 
minds. 

The questions however often came up — Why does 
the priest go into a dark room in the daytime ? 
Why not speak to me in English, and not in Latin ? 
How can he forgive sin ? What, if my sins, after 
all, are not forgiven ? And I always found that I 
could play my pranks better after confession than 
before, for I could go at them with a lighter heart. 
Very early in life my confidence in this doctrine 



TO BISHOP HUGHES 21 

of Confession was shaken ; and at a later period I 
came to the conclusion that it was a priestly device 
to ensnare the conscience, and to enslave men. 

Another thing which made early a deep impres- 
sion on my mind was this. On my first remem- 
bered journey to Dublin we passed by a place, 
called, unless I mistake, St. John's Well. It is, as 
you know, one of the " Holy Wells,' 5 of Ireland. 
There was a vast crowd of poor-looking and dis- 
eased people around it. Some were praying, some 
shouting; many were up in the trees which sur- 
rounded it. All these trees were laden, in all their 
branches, with shreds of cloth of every possible 
variety and colour. I inquired what all this meant. 
I was told : " This is St. John's Well, and these 
people come here to get cured." But what do 
those rags mean, hanging on the trees ? I was told, 
that the people who were not immediately cured, 
tied a piece of their garments on some limb of the 
trees, to keep the good Saint of the Well in mind 
of their application. And judging from the number 
of pieces tied on the trees, I inferred that the number 
that went away cured were very few. I had pre- 
viously read some travels in Africa describing some 
of the religious rites of the sable sons of that con- 
tinent ; and the thought that those performed around 
St. John's Well were just like them, occurred to 
me. I have no doubt but that the rites witnessed 
in my youth are performed there yet — that the ragq 
of diseased persons are now streaming from those 



22 kirwan's letters 

trees to remind the Saint of the requests of those 
who suspended them. There was always a priest 
present to hear confessions, and to receive the 
pennies of the poor pilgrims. And the impression 
then made upon my mind was, that it was a piece 
of paganism. And the rites and ceremonies about 
this Well, I learn, are nothing in comparison with 
those performed at the Wells of Saint Patrick in the 
County Down. I will here insert an account of a 
festival at St. Patrick's Well as given by an eye- 
witness. 

" When or how the custom which I shall describe 
originated, I know not, nor is it necessary to inquire ; 
but every midsummer eve thousands of Roman 
Catholics, many from distant parts of the country, 
resort to These celebrated holy wells to cleanse their 
souls from sin, and clear their mortal bodies of dis- 
eases. The influx of people of different ranks, for 
some nights before the one in which alone, during 
the whole year, these wells possess this power (for 
on all other days and nights in the year they rank 
not above common draw-wells), is prodigious : and 
their attendants, hordes of beggars, whose ragged 
garments, if once taken off, could not be put on 
again by the ingenuity of man, infest the streets and 
lanes, and choose their lodgings in the highways and 
hedges. Having been previously informed of the 
approach of this miraculous night, and having made 
ourselves acquainted with the locality of the wells, 
early in the evening we repaired to the spot : we 
had been told that we should see something quite 
new to us, and we met with what scarcely was credi- 
ble on ocular evidence. The spot on which this 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 23 

scene of superstitious folly was exhibited, was admi- 
rably adapted to heighten every attendant circum- 
stance of it ; the wonderful wells, of which there 
are four, being situated in a square or patch of 
ground, surrounded by steep rocks, which reverbe- 
rated every sound, and redoubled all the confusion. 
The coup d'osil of the square on our approach pre- 
sented a floating mass of various coloured heads, and 
our ears were astonished with confused and mingled 
sounds of mirth and sorrow, of frantic, enthusiastic 
joy, and deep desponding ravings. On descending 
into the square we found ourselves immediately in 
the midst of innumerable groups of these fanatics, 
running in all directions, confusedly, in appearance, 
but methodically, as we afterwards found in reality ; 
— the men and the women were barefooted, and the 
heads of all were bound round with handkerchiefs. 
Some were running in circles, some were kneeling 
in groups, some were singing in wild concert, some 
were jumping about like maniacs at the end of an 
old building, which, we were told, was the ruins of 
a chapel erected, with several adjacent buildings, in 
one miraculous midsummer's night by the tutelary 
saint of the wells, of whose talent as a mason they 
give, it must be confessed, no very exalted opinion. 
When we had somewhat recovered from the first 
surprise which the (to us) unaccountably fantastic 
actions of the crowd had given us, we endeavoured 
to trace the progress of some of these deluded vota- 
ries through all the mazes of their mystic penance. 
The first object of them all appeared to be the ascent 
of the steepest and most rugged part of the rock, up 
which both men and women crawled their painful 
way on their hands and bare knees. The men's 
clothes were all made so as to accommodate their 



24 KIRWAN 8 LETTERS 

knees with all the sharpness of the pointed rock ; 
and the poor women, many of them young and beau- 
tiful, took incredible pains to prevent their petticoats 
from affording any defence against its torturing as- 
perities. Covered with dust and perspiration, and 
blood, they at last reached the summit of the rock 
where, in a rude sort of chair hewn out of the stone 
sat an old man, probably one of their priesthood, 
who seemed to be the representative of St. Patrick, 
and the high-priest of this religious frenzy. In his 
hat each of the penitents deposited a half-penny, after 
which he turned them round a certain number of times, 
listened to the long catalogue of their offences, ana 
dictated to them the penance they were to undergo 
or perform. Then they descended the rock by 
another path, but in the same manner and posture, 
equally careful to be cut by the flints, and to suffer 
as much as possible : this w r as, perhaps, more painful 
travelling than the ascent had been — the suffering 
knees were rubbed another way — every step threat- 
ened a tumble ; and if any thing could have been 
lively there, the ridiculous attitudes of these de- 
scenders would have made us so. When they 
gained the foot of the hill they (most of them) be- 
stowed a small donation of charity on some miserable 
groups of supplicants who were stationed there. 
One beggar, a cripple, sat on the ground, at one 
moment addressing the crowd behind him, and 
swearing that all the Protestants ought to be burnt 
out of the country, and, in the same breath, begging 
the penitents to give him one half-penny for the love 
of 6 swate blessed Jasus. 9 The penitents now re- 
turned to the use of their feet, and commenced a 
running sort of Irish jiggish walk round several 
cairns or heaps of stones erected at different spaces : 



TO BISHOP HUGHES 25 

this lasted for some time. Suddenly they would 
prostrate themselves before the cairn and ejaculate 
some hasty prayers, as suddenly they would rise and 
resume their mill-horse circumrotation. Their eyes 
were fixed ; their looks spoke anxiety, almost despair ; 
and the operation of their faculties seemed totally 
suspended. They then proceeded to one end of the 
old chapel, and seemed to believe that there was a 
virtue, unknown to us heretics, in one particular 
stone of the building, which every one was careful 
to touch with the right hand ; those who were tall 
did it easily ; those who were less, left no mode of 
jumping unpractised to accomplish it. But the most 
remarkable, and doubtless the most efficient of the 
ceremonies, was reserved for the last ; and surely 
nothing was ever devised by man which more for- 
cibly evinced how low our nature can descend. 
Around the largest of the wells, which was in a 
building very much, to common eyes, like a stable, 
all those who had performed their penances were 
assembled, some dressing, some undressing, many 
stark naked. A certain number of them were ad- 
mitted at a time into this holy well, and there men 
and women of every age bathed . promiscuously 
without any covering. They undressed before bath- 
ing, and performed the whole business of the toilet 
afterwards in the open air, in the midst of the crowd, 
without appearing sensible of the observations of 
lookers-on, perfectly regardless of decency, perfectly 
dead to all natural sensations. This was a strange 
sight, but so nearly resembling the feast of lunatics, 
that even the voluptuary would have beheld it with- 
out any emotions but those of dejection. The pen- 
ance having terminated in this marvellous ablution, 
the penitents then adjourned either to booths and 



26 KTRWAn's LETTERS 

tents to drink, or join their friends. The air then 
rang with musical monotonous singing, which be- 
came louder with every glass of whisky, finishing 
in frolicsome debauch, and laying, in all probability, 
the foundation for future penances and more thorough 
ablutions. No pen can describe all the confusion, no 
description can give a just idea of the noise and dis- 
order which filled this hallowed square, this theatre 
of fanaticism, this temple of superstition, of which 
the rites rival all that we are told of in the East. The 
minor parts of the spectacle were filled up with 
credulous mothers, half drowning their poor children 
to cure their sore eyes ; with cripples who exhibited 
every thing that has yet been discovered in de- 
formity, expecting to be washed straight, and to 
walk away nimble and comely. 

" The experience of years had not shaken their 
faith ; and though nobody was cured, nobody went 
away doubting. Shouting and howling and swear- 
ing and carousings filled up every pause, and l threw 
o'er this spot of earth the air of hell. 5 I was never 
more shocked and struck with horror ; and perceiv- 
ing many of them intoxicated with religious fervour 
and all-potent whisky, and warming into violence 
before midnight, at which time the distraction was 
at its climax, I left this scene of human degradation 
in a state of mind not easily to be described. The 
whole road from the wells to the neighbouring town 
was crowded with such supplicants as preferred 
mortal half-pence to holy penance. The country 
around was illuminated with watch-fires; the de- 
mons of discord and fear were abroad in the air ; 
the pursuits of the world, and the occupations of 
the peaceful, appeared put a stop to by the per- 
formance of ceremonies, disgraceful when applied 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 27 

to propitiate an all-compassionate Divinity, whom 
these religionists were determined and taught to con- 
sider jealous rather than merciful. I wish it were in 
my power, without insincerity, to pay a compliment 
to the Irish Catholic clergy. On this occasion they 
were the mad priests of these Bacchanalian orgies ; 
the fomenters of fury ; the setters-on to strife ; the 
mischievous ministers of the debasement of their 
people, lending their aid to plunge their credulous 
congregations in ceremonious horrors."* 

Now, sir, can you, as a man of high intelligence, 
regard these things in any other light than as the 
merest impostures to delude the ignorant ? And 
what epithet sufficiently expressive of abhorrence 
can we apply to the priesthood who thus impose upon 
a credulous people ? 

I well remember yet another of these impostures. 
When a boy I often heard that on the morning of 
Easter Sunday, the sun might be seen dancing in 
the heavens and in the chapels, to express its joy on 
the anniversary of the resurrection of Christ. And 
I often wished to be where I could witness the phe- 
nomenon. It took place in a certain chapel, and in 
the presence of many pious and admiring beholders. 
An unbeliever in priestly miracles was present, who 
traced up the dancing oi' the sunbeams through the 
chapel to an individual managing concealed mirrors, 
so as to produce the wonderful effect! Of tin's I 
heard; and although it seemed incredible, yet it 

* McGavin's Protestant, p. 403 



28 kirwan's letters 

made an impression on my mind. The probability 
of the imposture cannot be doubted by those who 
know that the earth which covers the grave of Father 
Sheely (who was convicted of treason, and hung in 
the County of Tipperary), when boiled in milk, 
cures a variety of diseases. 

The Bible, with all its notes and glosses, as pub- 
lished by the authority of your own church, is de- 
nied by you to be a complete rule of faith. On this 
question I will not now enter, only so far as to say 
that this denial holds a very intimate connexion with 
its virtual withholding from the people. If not a 
complete rule, it may lead astray ; and as it is capa- 
ble of opposite interpretations, in some of its passa- 
ges, the souls of the people must not be endangered 
by its general circulation. It is better to know 
nothing of the Bible, than in some particulars to mis- 
interpret it ! Your infallible church teaches both 
ways on a variety of subjects, and among the rest, 
on the circulation of the Bible. It allows it in Pro- 
testant countries, with some stringent regulations ; 
it virtually forbids it in purely Papal countries. 
How many Bibles could your Reverence procure in 
Spain, Portugal, Naples, or Italy ? How many 
Spaniards or Italians have ever read a Bible through ? 
How many of the Irish peasantry that can read and 
write have ever read ten chapters of it ? Now, sir, 
for years together I sat daily at table with a Catholic 
priest, who was a member of the family, and the 
curate of the parish ; and I never saw a Bible used 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 29 

in the family. I never heard at table, or in the 
morning, or in the evening, a religious service. 
The numbers of the Douay Bible published by sub- 
scription in Folio, were taken in the family, but never 
read. And not only so, but I never heard a sermon 
preached in a Catholic chapel in Ireland ; nor a 
word of explanation on a single Christian topic, doc- 
trine, or duty. And before I was sixteen years of 
age I never read a chapter in the word of God, 
whilst in other respects my education was not neg- 
lected. I often asked the meaning of this thing and 
the other ; but there was no explanation. Nor can 
one out of one thousand, in Papal countries, give a 
single reason for one of your peculiar doctrines or 
duties. And since in the maturity of my judgment 
I have examined this matter, I have greatly com- 
mended your wisdom in withholding the Bible from 
the people ; if I were a bishop or a priest of your 
church I would do the same. I heard a man who 
lived near the Canada line, in Vermont, during the 
last war with Great Britain, tell the following story. 
" There was," said he, " much smuggling going on. 
Whenever we met a traveller with a pack of any 
kind, we ordered it to be searched. Honest men 
always said, ' search and welcome.' But whenever 
u man refused, or made any fuss about it, we always 
suspected that there were contraband goods in the 
pack; and we were never mistaken." You have 
brought contraband goods into the house of God, and 
the Bible tells the people so. Hence it is forbidden. 
3* 



30 kirwan's letters 

Light is the sure death of darkness. The circula- 
tion of the Bible will be the death of popery. 
With great respect, yours, 

Kir wan. 



LETTER IV. 

Transition from Popery to Infidelity — Inqniry awakened — Abstinence from 
Meats — The Mass — Confession — Transubstantiation — Religion vanishes. 

My dear Sir, — In my last two letters I have 
stated to you some of the causes of my early mis- 
givings as to yours being a true church, and as to 
its holding the true faith. These causes I might 
multiply indefinitely ; for you well know it to be a 
law of the human mind that when its confidence is 
once shaken, it sees causes of suspicion even in 
things true and honest. In my first letter I stated 
to you that when I deliberately rejected the autho- 
rity and teachings of your church, I became an 
infidel. And my object in the present letter is to 
reveal to you the process through which my mind 
passed, in its transition from popery to infidelity. I 
believe that your Reverence will pronounce it a 
very natural one. 

On reaching the years of maturity my mind was 
a perfect blank as to all religious instruction. And 
if such instruction is ever given by your church or 
priests, my advantages were peculiarly good for 
receiving it. Indeed I was even talked of as a 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 31 

candidate for Maynooth. Whilst my mind was 
filled with superstitious notions concerning meats 
and penances, and external observances, and legends, 
it was utterly ignorant of the Bible. "With my 
Missal I was somewhat familiar : I said the Cate- 
chism when I was confirmed at the age of nine or 
ten ; and that was the amount of my religious edu- 
cation. At the age of eighteen years the Catechism 
was forgotten, and the Missal was neglected; and 
as my conscience was uneducated, and my mind 
unfurnished with religious principles, the only test 
of truth left me was my common sense. I then 
became the associate of companions of Protestant 
education, who would sometimes ask me my reason 
for this and that observance ; and not being able to 
give any, as none were ever given me, I was fre- 
quently put to the blush. I candidly state to you 
that it was in this way I was first led to bring to the 
test of my common sense, then my only standard, 
some of the doctrines and rites of your church. 
And this reveals the reason why your priesthood is 
so intensely concerned that Catholic children should 
be guarded from all contact with those of Protestant 
education. The spirit of inquiry is contagious; and 
pope, bishops, and priests fear it worse than the 
plague. Its indulgence, you know, either is, or 
leads to, mortal sin. Let me briefly state to you 
some of the effects of this spirit of inquiry upon me. 
From my youth up I was taught to abstain from 
all meats on Fridays and Saturdays. Why on these 



32 kirwan's letters 

days more than any other, I was never told. And 
if by mistake I was involved in the violation of this 
law, I felt a burden upon my conscience, of which 
confession could only relieve me. Circumstances 
led me to inquire into this matter. I saw good 
papists eating eggs, and fish, and getting drunk on 
these days ; but this was no violation of the law 
of the Church ! Yet if these persons should eat 
meat of any kind \ or use gravy in any way, their 
consciences were troubled, and they must perform 
penance ! This led me to ask, Is this reasonable ? 
If I may eat meat on Thursday, why not on Friday ? 
Can God, in things of this kind, make that to be a 
sin at one time which is not on another ? I saw 
also persons, for whose moral worth I had the 
highest regard, eating meats on those days, and 
without any injury ! And I came to the conclusion 
that your regulations upon this matter were un- 
reasonable, and rejected them. And, as far as I 
now remember, this was my first step towards light 
and freedom. 

Whether our course is upwards, towards the 
region of light, or downwards, towards that of dark- 
ness, one step always prepares for another. De- 
voted to reading at this period of my life, I perused, 
without discrimination, every thing that came in 
my way. Some book or tract, now forgotten, gave 
rise to some inquiries as to the Mass. I asked, What 
does it mean ? I could not tell, though for years a 
regular attendant upon it. Why does the priest 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 33 

dress so ? What book does he read from, when 
carried now to his right, and now to his left ? What 
mean those candles burning at noonday ? Why do 
I say prayers in Latin, which I understand not? 
Should I not know what I am saying when address- 
ing my Maker ? Why bow down, and strike my 
breast, when the little bell rings ? What does it 
all mean ? The darkness of Egypt rested upon 
these questions. I thus reasoned with myself; 
God is a spiritual and intelligent being, and he 
requires an intelligent worship. What worship I 
render him in the Mass, I know not. My intel- 
ligent worship only is acceptable to him, and is 
beneficial to me. I am a rational being, and 1 
degrade my nature, and insult my Maker, by offer- 
ing to Him a worship in which neither my reason, 
nor His intelligence is consulted. Having come to 
this conclusion, I gave up the Mass as a form of 
worship well enough fitted for an idol, but unfitted 
to be rendered by a rational being to the infinitely 
intelligent Jehovah. I have never been to Mass 
since, save out of curiosity to see how an ignorant 
people can be edified by what seems to me the 
most unmeaning and farcical of all the rites that 
ever man has devised. And you know, sir, *that 
with all devotion and honesty a Catholic may wait 
on your Masses until his locks are as white as your 
surplice, and then pass into eternity without one 
single spiritual idea upon the subject of religion ; 
resolving it all into external observances. 



34 

When I came to the above conclusion on the 
subject of the Mass, I experienced no great diffi- 
culty as to other matters which passed rapidly in 
review before me. Must I go to Confession ? My 
prejudices said, Yes. My reason said, No. And 
my logic was simply as follows : — If I truly repent 
of my sins God will forgive me ; if I do not, the 
priest cannot absolve me. And I spurned as un- 
reasonable, and as an insult to my common sense, 
your terrible doctrine that " Every Christian is 
bound, under pain of damnation, to confess to a 
priest all his mortal sins, which after diligent exa- 
mination he can possibly remember ; yea even his 
most secret sins ; his very thoughts ; yea and all 
the circumstances of them which are of any mo- 
ment." I ask you, sir, if this dogma of the Council 
of Trent is not a horrible dogma ? It suspends upon 
confessing to a priest, what the Bible suspends on 
believing in Christ ! Do you, sir, believe it ? Can 
you believe it ? 

With yet greater abhorrence, I gave up the 
doctrine of Transubstantiation. As explained by 
Dr. Challoner, in his " Catholic Christian In- 
structed," Chap. 5, it means "that the bread and 
wine are changed by the consecration into the 
body and blood of Christ ; and are so changed that 
Christ himself, true God, and true man, is truly, 
really, and substantially present, in the sacrament." 
With this doctrine in view, I went to witness the 
administration of the Eucharist, as you call it. I 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 35 

went to Saint Peter's in Barclay-street. The com- 
municants drew around the altar upon their knees. 
With a little box in his hand the priest passed from 
one to the other, taking a wafer, smaller than that 
used in sealing a letter, from the box, and placing 
it upon the extended tongue of the communicant. 
I was always taught that the teeth must not touch 
the wafer; — that it must melt upon the tongue. 
This I find to be the law of your church. I wit- 
nessed the ceremony, as I had often done before. I 
retired from the scene, asking these questions : Is 
that little wafer the real body and blood of Christ ? 
Does the priest, in that little box, not as large as a 
snuff-box, carry two or three hundred real bodies of 
Christ ? Do these communicants, each in their 
turn, eat the real body and blood of Christ ? My 
dear sir, I cannot express to you the violence with 
which my mind rejected the absurdity. Look at it 
in what light you may, it is abhorrent to our common 
reason — it gives the lie to every sense with which 
God has endowed us. It is a wicked imposition. 

Having gone through this process, not with a light 
and trifling, but with a serious mind, my prejudices 
rising in stormy rebellion against my convictions, I 
raised up my eyes, and behold, my religion was 
gone ! The priest was a juggler, and his religion a 
fable ! Every thing that I had ever learned from 
parent and priest to esteem as religion, was now 
rejected as false ; and not knowing but that this was 



KIRWAN S LETTERS 



all of religion that was in the world, I had no alter- 
native but infidelity. I had no test of truth but my 
reason, and when I brought your system to that, I 
was compelled to reject it, not only as false, but as 
a monstrous absurdity, and with it, all religion. 

Nor have I, dear sir, any hesitation in saying that 
the process of my own mind from popery to infi- 
delity, is that through which multitudes of minds 
have passed, and are now passing. To an inquiring 
mind, which knows nothing of the Bible, infidelity 
is the fruit of popery. Hence in papal countries, 
whilst the masses are superstitious, the intelligent 
and educated are infidel. If they sustain the vul- 
gar religion, it is for reasons of state. Hence, the 
infidelity of France, of Spain, of Italy. At the 
present hour the mind of these countries is more 
infidel than papal. And this is true of every coun- 
try on the globe where your religion prevails. It 
makes the masses superstitious, and the intelligent; 
infidels. 

And permit me io say, my dear sir, in reference 
to yourself, that I have far too high a regard for 
your intelligence to admit for a moment that you 
believe in the absurd doctrines which your church 
teaches. Like the ancient priests of Egypt, you 
must have one class of opinions for the people, and 
another for yourself. Will you say that this is 
harsh and uncharitable ? None knows better than 
yourself that history affirms it of popes, cardinals, 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 37 

and bishops that have lived before you. On no 
other ground can I possibly account for your remain- 
ing an hour in the Roman Catholic Church. 
With great respect, yours, 

Kirwan. 



LETTER V. 

Popery makes the masses superstitious, the intelligent infidels — Who go to 
confession 1 — Ireland — France — Other countries — Reasons why Popery 
debases — The days of Popery numbered. 

My dear Sir, — In my last letter, in which I stated 
to you the process of my mind in its transition from 
Popery to Infidelity, I asserted that the effect of your 
religion is, to make the masses superstitious, and the 
intelligent infidels, in all the countries where it pre- 
dominates. Although the truth of this assertion is 
self-evident to the well-read mind, the briefest con- 
sideration will make its truth apparent to all. 

How stands the matter in our own country ? Who 
attend your Confessional, and your Masses in New- 
York ? How many of the educated Irish, French, 
or Germans, ever whisper at your knees their sins, 
or ever bow at your altars to receive your wafers 
on their tongues, believing them to " be Jesus Christ 
himself, true God and true man," and believing that 
he is "truly, really and substantially present" in 
them ? How many of these go to your churches ? 
Let any body, wishing to know, stand at the door of 



38 kirwan's letters 

St. Peter's or St. Patrick's, on the Sabbath, and ex 
amine the multitudes who attend these places, and 
they will soon learn. And even when an intelli- 
gent person is seen mixing with those who attend on 
your masses, he goes merely through the force of 
habit, or to wait upon a female relative. Permit 
me to say that, with an acquaintance somewhat 
extended in our country, I know not a single lay- 
man, of any repute for learning or science, who 
believes in your distinguishing doctrines. There 
are some, I allow, of high standing and character 
who are nominally Catholics, but who, I learn on 
inquiry, are but nominally so. And the nominally 
Catholic is really an infidel. 

And how stands the case as to Ireland, the land 
of our birth, where seven of her nine millions of 
people are Roman Catholics ? Whilst its masses 
are with your church, is not its mind in opposition 
to it ? And what has kept the mind of Ireland from 
being infidel, but the fact that the religion of the 
Bible stands out there with a greater or less degree 
of prominence in opposition to the religion of the 
priest ? Thank God the Irish massacre did not 
exterminate Protestantism in the "fairest isle of the 
ocean." 

And how stands the case in France, where your 
church, Nero-like, extinguished the lights of truth, 
and caused the blood of the Huguenots to run like 
water? Popery has managed France in its own 
way, without any let or hinderance, and what has 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 39 

been the result ? It legislated God out of existence 
— decreed religion to be a fable, and death to be an 
eternal sleep. Knowing nothing of religion but 
what it learned through the unmeaning rites of your 
church, and by the carnal policy of your priests, it 
sought to erase every trace of it from existence. 
And although France has recovered from the intoxi- 
cation of the maddening bowl, and has risen to 
order from the v/ild chaos into which Popery plunged 
It, its mind is yet infidel. Voltaire is the pope of the 
mind of France, and Sue is the high priest of the 
people. Your dumb show of imposing ceremony is 
there esteemed, not as solemn, but farcical ; and 
upon your rites but few attend save the peasantry 
and the women. And the world should hold the 
Papal church accountable for all the horrors of the 
French Revolution. 

What is thus true of France is yet more true of 
the other Papal countries of Europe. If the no- 
bility of Spain, Portugal, Austria, or Italy, are less 
infidel than in France, it is because they are less 
educated. Their masses are superstitious — their 
educated men, including many of their clergy, are 
infidels — and their men of fortune and spirit live 
without any moral restraint. Popery brings no 
strong moral influence to bear upon the mind and 
conscience of any people. In the proportion tl 
its influence is strong, do people and nations sink in 
the intellectual, social, and moral scale. 

That you yourself, dear sir, may see this, sit do^vn 



40 KIR WAN 's LETTERS 

and candidly compare Connaught and Ulster, in Ire- 
land. In the one, Popery almost exclusively prevails ; 
in the other, Protestantism is in the ascendency. 
What a difference between them ! Compare Ireland 
and Scotland — and although the land of St. Patrick 
is far richer than that of St. Andrew, yet how heaven- 
wide the difference between them ! Compare Spain 
with England — Italy with Prussia — Rome with 
Edinburgh — Belfast with Cork : how wide the dif- 
ference ! Come across the Atlantic, and continue 
the comparison on our own Western continent. 
Compare Mexico to New England — Brazil to these 
United States — the city of Mexico to that of Boston, 
or New-York, or Cincinnati ! How great the con- 
trast ! Come yet nearer home : compare the wor- 
shippers at St. Peter's in Barclay-street with those 
at St. Paul's in Broadway ; — compare the attendants 
on your own ministry at St. Patrick's with those who 
worship God at the Brick Church, or at La Fayette 
Place, or at University Place. How wide the dif- 
ference intellectually, socially, morally ! And why 
is it that Papal countries and communities thus suf- 
fer, and so sadly suffer, when contrasted with other 
communities where there is an unshackled con- 
science and an open Bible ? There must be some 
general law or cause in operation to produce results 
so uniform. What is that law or cause ? Sir, it is 
the influence of that system of religion which you 
are seeking with so much zeal and ability to extend. 
The traveller in Europe need not be told when he 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 41 

crosses the lines that separate Papal from Protestant 
states ; the obvious marks of higher civilization de- 
clare the transition with almost as much plainness 
as would a broad river or a chain of mountains. 
Popery, with infallible certainty, degrades man. 
Do you ask how ? In this wise. 

It takes from him the Bible, the revealed will of 
God, with all its clear light, with all its high mo- 
tives to excite the soul to high and holy action ; and 
without which neither civilization nor religion can 
be long maintained. Papal countries are countries 
without the Bible. 

It withholds from the people all right moral in- 
struction. It suppresses the preaching of the gospel, 
and substitutes for it the dumb show of the Mass. 
The Apostles turned the world upside down by 
preaching : but in Papal countries there is generally 
no preaching. I venture the assertion that there 
are multitudes of Catholic churches in Catholic 
countries where a sermon would be as great a rarity 
as would be the saying of mass in a Scottish kirk ! 
And is it not one of the seven wonders of the day, 
that the present Pope, the pretended successor of 
that warm-hearted preacher, Peter, has preached a 
sermon, the first preached by a Pope in three hundred 
years ! ! Could Peter return to Rome, unless his 
long absence from the body has cooled his generous 
but impetuous spirit, I am afraid he would treat his 
pretended successors as roughly a? he once did 

Malchus. 

4* 



42 kir wax's letters 

It withholds from the people the benign influences 
of Christianity, the great element in the develop- 
ment of civilization. It withholds the Bible ; — the 
sermon ; — it has instituted a worship which wants 
nothing of heathenism but the name ; — that worship 
is performed in a language now unspoken by any 
living people ; — it excludes all reading from the 
people but such as the priest permits ; — acting on 
the principle that ignorance is the mother of devo- 
tion, it erects no schools for the instruction of the 
common mind ; — it substitutes the feast day for the 
Sabbath, — the saints and the Virgin Mary for the 
Saviour : — confessions and penances, for faith in 
Christ ; — and reverence for places, unmeaning rites, 
relics, for the fear of God. Sir, I say it with deep 
sorrow, Popery is not Christianity. It is a fearful per- 
version of the religion of God ; and for the evidence 
of these assertions I again point you to its influence 
upon the people where there is nothing to counteract 
it. It has degraded the once noble Castilian until 
there is no*v none so mean as to do him reverence ; 
— Italy, once the seat of empire, it has reduced to 
feebleness ; — and the once chivalrous Italian, who 
carried the eagles of his country to the extremes 
of the world, to an ignoble slave. And it has ren- 
dered our noble-hearted, noble-minded, impulsive 
countrymen, the hewers of wood and the drawers 
of water in all the countries to which they emigrate. 
The degradation of Ireland, which has made it a by- 
word, I charge upon Popery. If the priests of Ire- 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 43 

land would give the quarter of what they receive 
for praying souls out of Purgatory, to the sustaining 
of common schools among the people, there might be 
three or more such schools sustained in every parish 
in that bleeding, famishing, yet noble country ; and 
its sons would have an opportunity of rising to that 
position to which their native wit, eloquence, and 
genius entitle them. 

These, sir, are, in brief, my reasons for asserting 
that the effect of your religion is to make the masses 
of your people superstitious. They have no intel- 
.igent views of God. They know nothing about 
the plan of salvation. Sacraments and ceremonies 
exert an undefined, mysterious influence. The 
priest exerts a ghostly, fearful power, before which 
the ignorant believer slavishly crouches, and of 
which he stands far more in awe than he does of the 
God who has made him. 

And the very causes which render the masses 
superstitious, operate in an opposite direction upon 
the intelligent, and drive them into infidelity. They 
reason about your doctrines as the Earl of Mulgrave 
is said to have done with a priest who was sent to 
him by James II. of England, to convert him to Po- 
pery. " Sir," said he, " I have convinced myself 
by much reflection that God made man ; but I can- 
not believe that man can make God." 

My dear sir, the days of Popery are numbered. 
The Bible is against it. Civilization is against it. 
The mind of the world is against it. Good people 



44 KIR WAN'S LETTERS 

now pray for its downfall as earnestly as they do 
for that of Mahometan ism. It may live through 
centuries yet to come ; but it will be as Judaism 
now lives ; or as Paganism lived in many dark cor- 
ners of the Roman world long after its conversion to 
the Christian faith. But my own fear is that the 
Papal world, both as to its mind and its masses, will 
become suddenly infidel, as in France, and then 
pour down its legions upon the church of God, to 
blot it out of existence. The Romish church is one 
of the " gates of hell " which has poured forth ar- 
mies of the aliens in opposition to the church of 
Christ ; but it has never, nor will it ever, prevail 
against it. 

With great respect, yours, 

Kirwan. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 45 



LETTER VI. 

Popery has degraded Ireland — Evidences of its degradation — Absenteeism — 
Sub-letting — Tithes — The priest's cry for money. 

My dear Sir, — In my last letter, in which I 
sought to illustrate that the influence of Popery is 
to make the masses superstitious, and the intelligent, 
infidels, in all the countries where it predominates, 
I made the following assertion : " it has rendered 
our noble-hearted, noble-minded, impulsive country- 
men, the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, 
in all the countries to which they emigrate. The 
degradation of Ireland which has made it a by- word, 
I charge upon Popery." To some of the evidences 
of the truth of these assertions I wish to call your 
attention in the present letter. Perhaps the present 
state of feeling in our country towards famine- 
stricken Ireland may secure for what I shall say to 
you some attention. 

That Ireland is a degraded country, as to its 
masses, with all our pride of country, neither you 
nor I can deny. Its general poverty, its pervading 
ignorance, its mud hovels, its innumerable beggars, 
its insubordination, arc the sad and tangible proofs 
of its degradation. They lie upon the surface of 
the country, where every traveller can behold them. 
A.nd the untravelled American has the evidences of 



46 KIR WAN'S LETTERS 

this degradation brought to his own door. He sees 
it in the perfect ignorance of his Irish servant — in 
the squalid appearance of the Irish beggar — in the 
deep-rooted superstition of the Irish papist — in the 
Irish brawls in low tippling-houses — in the furious 
passions of an Irish mob — in the large proportion of 
Irish convicts in our prisons, and of vicious Irish in 
our places of moral reform. It is, my dear sir, 
with feelings of regret and shame that I make this 
statement. My love of country has never forsaken 
me for an hour. With all its faults, I love Ireland 
still ; and in the lowest depths of their degradation 
its children manifest a sensibility and a nobility that 
would honor those in the highest ranks of civiliza- 
tion, and that evince what they would be under a 
right development of their social and moral nature. 
What are the causes of this degradation ? 

I will not, I cannot omit from the list of causes 
what is technically called Absenteeism : the lordly 
proprietors of the land living in foreign countries, 
and expending abroad the hard earnings of their 
tenants at home. This is one of the grievous curses 
of Ireland. 

Nor can I omit the system of letting and sub- 
letting, or renting and sub-renting of the land, by 
the richer to the less rich, until between the owner 
and the actual cultivator there may be six to twelve 
landlords, each living upon those below him ; and 
the actual tillers of the land supporting them all ! 
This is infusing into the curse of absenteeism an 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 47 

ingredient which multiplies its bitterness by ten. It 
gives rise to a class of landlords as unpitying as 
famine. 

Nor can I omit the system of tithes for the sup- 
port of the Established Church of Ireland. An 
Episcopal priest is placed in every parish in Ire- 
land ; and if he has not one single parishioner to 
wait on his ministrations, he is yet entitled to his 
tithes from the parish. And these tithes are drawn 
from the actual cultivators of the soil, the poor 
tenants. And these tithes are usually let and sub- 
let, as is the land ; and their collection usually falls 
into the hands of men as rapacious as vultures. 
Yes, and the priest for whose support these tithes 
are paid may never have made the impress of his 
foot upon the soil of his parish ! Yes, and when 
the tither calls upon the poor man to pay his tithes 
for the support of a minister he has never seen, and 
for the maintenance of a religion which his soul ab- 
hors, unless he is ready to pay, his only cow, more 
than one half the support of his family, is driven to 
the market and there sold for half her value ! And 
If that does not pay, his pig is driven and sold in 
the same way ! Such is the system of tithes in Ire- 
land ! I have no language, my dear sir, in which 
to express my abhorrence of it. The support of 
such a system is a disgrace to the Protestant name ; 
it is a deep, dark, direful stain upon the equity of 
British legislation. It is a public protest before 
heaven and earth against the church that sanctions 



46 kirwan's letters 

it, and against the craven-hearted, earthly-minded 
clergy that can submit to be thus supported ! Out 
of your own church, sir, I know of no ecclesiastical 
nuisance so utterly offensive as that of the Estab- 
lished Church of Ireland ! And yet the very up- 
holders of these schemes of robbery, yes, and some, 
of the very individuals that pocket the plunder thus 
legally and ecclesiastically filched from the poor 
people, write to us about public faith and honesty, 
and lecture us upon the subject of slavery as if they 
were spotless as Gabriel ! Of all this I can say, as 
Talleyrand is reported to have said of a lady that 
frequently annoyed him ; " Madam," said he, " you 
have but one fault." " Pray, sir," said she, " what 
is it V " It is,"' said he, " that you are perfectly 
insufferable." Nor have I seen, among the various 
plans suggested by Lord John Russell for the relief 
of Ireland, a hint at the abolition of this nefarious 
system of tithes. 

Bad, my dear sir, as I think of these causes, and 
much as they have contributed to the degradation 
and impoverishing of Ireland, they are but as the 
dust of the balance when compared with the influ- 
ences of Popeiy. And that yourself may see this, 
hear me to the close, calmly, and without prejudice. 

Why this Absenteeism, of which we so bitterly 
and justly complain ? I am not about to excuse it ; 
but one of its reasons is the opposition of the priest 
to the efforts of the land proprietor to elevate his 
tenantry, and the fierce jealousies which the priest 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 49 

excites in the minds of the people. There is but 
little Absenteeism in Scotland ; why is it so general 
in Ireland ? The cause we find in the difference of 
the religion of the two people. If the parish priest 
of Ireland was like the parish minister of Scotland, 
the Marquis of Sligo would have as pleasant a home 
upon his estate as the Duke of Buccleugh, or the 
Marquis of Broadalbane. 

Popery does nothing for the education of the peo- 
ple of Ireland. With the wealth of the middling 
classes under its control, and almost at its beck, 
where are its schools and its colleges for the educa- 
tion of its people ? You send to Ireland for money 
to establish them here ; why erect none there ? 
Connaught, where your church has complete con-, 
trol, is an almost unbroken mass of ignorance. And 
Munster is precisely like it. And these are the 
portions of it where the famine is now raging. Ig- 
norance brutalizes, and sensualizes, and renders 
men improvident. It places our higher in subjec- 
tion to our lower nature ; and in withnoiding educa- 
tion from the people popery has degraded Ireland. 
And wherever its children are carried by the tide 
of emigration, their want of education places them 
in the lowest grade of society : and they are more 
dreaded as a burden, than hailed as an accession. 
Without the high aspirations which knowledge im- 
parts, and without the self-respect which it creates, 
they arc satisfied with being menials where they 
might be masters — to be carriers of mortar, where 



50 KIRWAN'S LETTERS 

they might be chief builders on the wall. If the 
ignorance of Ireland has any thing to do with the 
degradation of Ireland, I charge that ignorance upon 
Popery. 

And if Absenteeism, and sub-letting, and the tithe 
system do much to impoverish the people, Popery 
does yet more. It meets them at the cradle, and 
dogs them to the grave, and beyond it, with its de- 
mands for money. When the child is baptized, the 
priest must- have money. When the mother is 
churched, the priest must have money. When the 
boy is confirmed, the bishop must have money. 
When he goes to confession, the priest must have 
money. When he partakes of the Eucharist, the 
priest must have money. When visited in sickness, 
tl e priest must have money. If he wants a charm 
against sickness or the witches, he must pay for it 
money. When he is buried, his friends must pay 
money. After mass is said over his remains, a 
plate is placed on the coffin, and the people collected 
together on the occasion are expected to deposit their 
contribution on the plate. Then tiie priest pockets 
the money, and the people take the body to the 
grave. And then, however good the person, his 
soul has gone to Purgatory ; and however bad, his 
soul may have stopped there. And then comes the 
money for prayers and masses for deliverance from 
purgatory, which prayers and masses are continued 
as long as the money continues to be paid. Now 
when we remember that seven out of the nine mik 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 51 

lions of the people of Ireland are papists, and of the 
most bigoted stamp ; and that this horse-leech pro- 
cess of collecting money, whose ceaseless cry is 
"give, give" is in operation in every parish ; and 
that as far as possible every individual is subjected 
to it, can we wonder at the poverty and the degra- 
dation of Ireland ? Can we wonder that its noble- 
hearted, noble-minded people, are every where hew- 
ers of wood and drawers of water ? Shame, shame, 
upon your church, that it treats a people so con- 
fiding and faithful so basely ! Shame, shame upon 
it, that it does so little, to elevate a people that con- 
tribute so freely to its support ! O, Popery, thou 
hast debased my country — thou hast impoverished 
its people — thou hast enslaved its mind ! From the 
hodman on the ladder — from the digger of the canal 
— from the ostler in the stable — from the unlettered 
cook in the kitchen, and the maid in the parlor — 
from the rioter in the street — from the culprit at the 
bar — from the state prisoner in his lonely dungeon 
— from the victim of a righteous law stepping into 
eternity from the gallows, for a murder committed 
under the delirium of passion or whisky, I hear a 
protest against thee as the great cause of the deep 
degradation of as noble a people as any upon which 
the sun shines in the circuit of its glorious way ! 

My dear sir, your religion is for the benefit of the 
priest, and not that of the people. Its object is not 
to spread light, but darkness, — not to advance civ- 
ilization but to retard it, — not to elevate but to do- 



52 



KIRWAN S LETTERS 



press man, that he may the more readily be brought 
under your influence. And we have in Ireland a 
type of what our happy land will be when the priest 
wields the power here which he wields there. 

I own, dear sir, that I have digressed a little from 
my original object in these letters. But in my next 
I shall commence with the reasons which on the 
most mature reflection yet prevent me from return- 
ing to the pale of your church. 

With great respect, yours, 

Kir wan. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 53 



LETTER VII. 

Reasons for not returning to the papal church — Prohibition of the Scrip- 
tures — The way and manner of papal worship — Ceremonial law of pope 
ry- -Obstructions raised between God and the soul 

My dear Sir, — Agreeably to the promise made to 
you in my last letter, I now commence a statement 
of the reasons which, on the most mature reflection, 
j A X prevent me from returning to the pale of your 
church. I wish to avoid prolixity of statement, and 
minuteness of detail ; as I feel that I am addressing 
one who can see the point, and weigh the force of 
an argument, without either. 

When, in the kind providence of God, my mind 
became interested to know what God would have 
me to do, I cast around for a true guide to the solu- 
tion of the question. Where could I find such an 
one ? Books are written by fallible men — priests 
had already imposed on my understanding — fond 
parents, deceived themselves, taught me superstition 
for religion — all men are liable to err. I felt there 
was a God, and that I was bound to obey him ; but 
where is the rule of my obedience ? This was the 
question. I was told of the Bible, but of that I 
knew nothing ; and, then, I knew the Bible to be by 
your church a prohibited book, or to be read only 
by priestly permission. I sought the Bible, imd 
read it. I found it to be the true, and only guide to 
5* 



54 kirwan's letters 

the right solution of the question as to what God 
would have me to do. And without the fear of the 
Pope, or of the anathemas of the Council of Trent, 
and without a line of license from prelate or priest, 
I have continued to read it for years. And the vir- 
tual prohibition of the unfettered reading of the Bi- 
ble by your church, is one of the main reasons why 
I cannot return to it. That your restrictions amount 
to a virtual prohibition your candor, will not for a 
moment deny. 

And let me ask you, dear sir, why this virtual 
prohibition ? Who has given you authority to say 
that I must not read what God has given to direct 
me into all the ways of faith and obedience ? God 
has commanded me to "Search the Scriptures;" 
who has given you authority to forbid me? What 
right have you to forbid me, more than I have to 
forbid you ? Produce your credentials ! Where 
does God place his Revealed Will in the keeping of 
pope, prelate or priest, to be doled out to his erring 
children in such ways and parcels as they may 
deem best ? He has no more placed the Bible under 
your control, or that of your church, than he has 
the sun in heaven, or the vital air. Nor can I con- 
ceive of any principle that can possibly induce you 
to withhold it from the people, without gloss or com- 
ment, save one : " Every one that doeth evil hateth 
the light, neither cometh to light, lest his deeds 
should be reproved." It is said that Herod, when 
convinced that he was not of the royal line of the 



TO EISHOP HUGHES. 55 

Jews, burned their genealogies and records, that his 
false pretences might not be confuted by them. Is 
it for a similar reason that your church withholds 
the Bible from the people ? The Bible lays the axe 
at the root of the Upas tree of Popery ; is this the 
reason why it is withheld ? 

Another of the reasons which prevent me from 
returning to your church is the way and the manner 
of your public worship of God. On reading the 
New Testament, I find that Jesus Christ embraced 
every opportunity of declaring the will of God. 
After his ascension and the descent of the Spirit, 
the Apostles went every where preaching the gospel 
of the Kingdom. The worship of God, as taught us 
in the New Testament, consists in prayer, praise, 
and the preaching of his word for the instruction 
and edification of his people. To the instruction 
and edification of the saints every thing in the 
church of Christ is made subservient. Is it so in 
the church of Rome ? Do your Masses convey any 
instruction to the common or the uncommon mind ? 
Do they ever give, have they ever given, one true 
idea of God, or of religion, to a human soul ? If so 
I should like to know it. May not individuals 
attend upon them from youth to gray hairs, and yet 
know not the first principles of the doctrines of 
Christ ? I have attended recently, sir, a High Mass 
at one of your Cathedrals. It was on the last Christ- 
inas day. I bore the unmeaning page .vat for three 



56 kirwan's letters 

hours together. There was the bishop in his robes, 
with his cap, his crook and his crosier — there were 
priests, in numbers, moving about, making their 
crosses, obeisances and genuflexions — when the 
bishop rose, the cross and crosier moved before him, 
and the priests, as waiters, went behind him — the 
book was shifted from side to side, and was read and 
chanted in ways that no mortal hearer could compre- 
hend — there was the raising of the Host, and the 
bowing down of the people — the incense, and all 
the other usual accompaniments of such a service ; 
and it struck me as one of the most farcical panto- 
mines that I ever witnessed. I left the house with- 
out receiving a solitary religious suggestion, and 
puzzled and confounded for a solution to the ques- 
tion, how intelligent men could possibly submit to 
act such a farce, and to pass it off upon a crowd of 
poor looking people for the solemn worship of God ? 
And if your Mass, when thus performed with all the 
splendor and pomp of your ritual, is thus unmean- 
ing, how insipid must it be when performed in your 
country chapels by ignorant priests, who hunt up 
the sheep only to shear off their wool ! God, my 
dear sir, is an intelligent God, he has given me in- 
telligence with which to worship him. For the 
intelligence within me, either as to its increase or 
exercise, your church makes no provision in its 
public worship. I must not, then, return to your 
church, and seek to have my soul, made for the in. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 57 

habitation of the Spirit, satisfied with the mummery 
of your muttered Masses, in the public worship of 
my God. 

Another of the reasons which prevent me from 
returning to your church is, the burdens which it 
places on my conscience, which crush, without cor- 
recting it. It institutes a kind of a ceremonial law 
which restricts where God has given liberty ; and 
which licenses where God has prohibited indul- 
gence. With your Fast and Feast days, who can 
keep up without an almanac in his hand? And 
how many of your people can read it ? Should I 
blunder in counting the days of the week, and, mis- 
taking Friday for Thursday, eat meat, my con- 
science is wounded. If in performing penance I 
miscount my beads, and say a less number of Pater 
Nosters than required, my conscience again suffers. 
If, ignorant of the " Laws of Lent " which have 
been just published by you, I should eat three meals 
on a day between " Ash Wednesday and Easter 
Sunday," or should eat meat on the "Thursday 
next after Ash Wednesday," or on " any day in the 
Holy Week," my conscience would be again bur- 
dened. And these are but specimens of the thou- 
sand and one ceremonial regulations of your church, 
as burdensome as they arc unmeaning, which fret 
and crush the conscience without directing or 
strengthening it. And whilst thus restricted in 
things indifferent, 1 am freely indulged in things 
which the divine law prohibits. 



58 KIR WAN'S LETTERS 

Now, sir, who has given you authority to make 
laws where God has made none ? Where is the 
law in the Statute Book for your Lents, your Feast 
days, your Fast days, your Easter days ? Why 
fast or feast at one time more than another ? Who 
has given you authority to say what I shall eat, or 
how often, in any one day of the year ? What un- 
utterable arrogance to tell me I cannot eat fish and 
flesh at the same meal ; what priestly intolerance 
to tell me, with my Bible open before me, that if I 
transgress these laws I sin against my God ! You 
know that the gospel is a law of liberty, you know 
that if a man eat meat he is not the worse, and that 
if he refrain he is not the better — you know that 
the Bible teaches that man is defiled, not by that 
which entereth into him, but by that which cometh 
out of him. And why burden souls and fetter con- 
sciences by silly enactments about things in them- 
selves indifferent, and about which God has made 
no regulations ? O, sir, like the Scribes and the 
Pharisees of old, you are busied about the mint, the 
annis and the cumin, forgetful of the weightier 
matters of the law. And I deeply regret that a 
man who has forced himself up to station and influ- 
ence against so many adverse circumstances, had 
not force enough left to break the chains of early 
religious prejudice, to rise up to the region of intel- 
lectual, and moral, and religious freedom ! You 
are too much of a man to stoop to such nonsense. 
I would leave such things to those who know no 
better. 



. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 59 

On these subjects, dear sir, your church must re- 
turn to the standard of the Bible, and of common 
sense, before I can return to it. 

Another of the reasons which prevent my return 
is, the obstructions which your church raises be- 
tween me and my God. My Bible, that hated book 
by pope, prelate, priest and papal peasant, teaches 
me that if any man sin he has an Advocate with 
the Father — Jesus Christ. It every where teaches 
me, that I may have free access to God through 
Jesus Christ, that if I sin, I may go for pardon 
directly to the throne of God, through the mediation 
of his Son. And this is a precious privilege; a 
privilege which may be enjoyed by all, "without 
money and without price." Now what do you ask 
of me to do in order to receive the forgiveness of 
sin, and to be restored to the favor of God ? You 
send me to Peter or Paul, or some other saint on the 
catalogue, who may have never known me ; and 
who may never hear me, if I pray unto them. Or 
you send me to Mary, whom you blasphemously 
call the Mother of God, to ask her to intercede for 
me. Nor will this suffice. I must go to your Con- 
fessional, and tell you all my sins ; incurring the 
fearful penalty of refusal of pardon if I withhold 
one. Thus you take from me the privilege of go- 
ing to God for myself, a privilege purchased for me 
by the death of Christ. You tell me I must go to 
the priest ; and from the priest to the saint, or to the 
Virgin ; and the Saint or Virgin will go for me to 



60 kirwan's letters 

the Saviour ; and he will go for me to the Father f 
And then when pardon is granted, it goes from the 
Father to the Son — from him to the Saint or Virgin 
— from him or her to the priest ; and when in the 
hands of the priest, he will give me absolution, if I 
pay for it ! Will you say, dare you say, that this 
is a caricature of your teachings upon this matter ? 
Would to God you could, with truth ! Why send 
me to the saints to ask them to intercede for me, if 
this is untrue ? That I am a sinner, I know and 
feel. That there is pardon for me through the 
atonement of Jesus Christ, on my repentance and 
faith, is a precious doctrine of the Bible, and of my 
creed. That pardon I receive the moment I sin- 
cerely exercise the graces of repentance and faith ; 
— yes, and not a whit the less freely, if all of you, 
pope, patriarchs, prelates and priests, were with 
Pharaoh and his chariots. 

And why turn me away from the door of mercy, 
and compel me to speak to my heavenly Father by 
proxy? Why call me away from the cross, and 
send me to a priest, or a saint, or a virgin, to ask 
them to do for me what I can better do for myself? 
Where has my Saviour taught me that I can only 
address him through a priestly attorney, that I must 
fee, however poor, for his services ? O, ask me to 
do any thing — to bale the ocean — to tame the hurri- 
cane — to arrest the sun — rather than ask me to re- 
turn to your church, until every thing is removed 
which forbids the free access of my soul to my God, 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 61 

— which suspends my salvation on any thing else 
than repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord 
Jesus Christ. You must pull down your toll-gates 
on the way of life, before you see me back. 

The statement of a few additional reasons I hope 
to give you in my next. 

With great respect, yours, 

Kirwan. 



LETTER VIII. 

Farther reasons for not returning to the papal church — Celibacy of the cler- 
gy — Auricular confessions — A call on Irish papists to assert their rights. 

My dear Sir, — In my last letter I entered on the 
statement of the reasons which yet prevent me from 
returning to the pale of your church. I adverted 
only to four : your virtual prohibition of the Bible ; 
the way and manner of your public worship of 
God; — your ceremonial law, which burdens and 
crushes, without instructing or correcting the con- 
science ; and the obstructions which you erect be- 
tween my soul and my God. These, or either of 
them, would be reason sufficient not merely to ex- 
cuse, but to forbid, my ever returning to your com- 
munion. For me to give farther reasons would 
seem to be a little like your doctrine of Supereroga- 
tion, which is not among the least of the absurd 
errors of your infallible church ; but as the argu- 



62 KIRWAN'S 1/ETTI 

ment is cumulative, you will bear with me whilst I 
proceed to the statement of a few others. 

I cannot return to your church, until you qease 
teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. 
Permit me here to say, dear sir, that, without a soli- 
tary exception, the things which are peculiar to 
your church,— the things which make it distinctively 
what it is, are the commandments of men, either in 
direct opposition to the teachings of the Bible, or 
based upon the most gross perversion of its mean- 
ing. In as brief a manner as possible, permit m* 
to illustrate this position. 

Your church teaches and enjoins the celibacy of 
its clergy, in language the most pointed and posi* 
tive ; and the Council of Trent hurls its anathemas 
against all who would assert the contrary doctrine, 
or who would admit the lawfulness of the marriage 
of a priest. Thus you forbid the priest to marry — 
} r ou damn him if he does marry — and you anathe- 
matize all who think or say that in marrying ke 
sinned not against God or man. All this, you ad- 
mit, is so. Now, then, I ask your authority for so 
teaching. I ask not your ecclesiastical, but your 
scriptural authority. Did not the Jewish priests 
many ? Was not Peter your first pope ? This 
you assert. And was not Peter's wife's mother sick 
of a fever ? Matt. 8 : 14. Pope Peter, then, had a 
wife. Why would it be a mortal sin in pope Pius 
IX. to have one also ? Would^he be the less pious 
or moral on that account ? You, sir, are a bishop. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 63 

How far you are a scriptural bishop, is not now the 
inquiry. But Paul in writing to Timothy says, " A 
bishop must be the husband of one wife .... having 
his children in subjection with all gravity." And 
even poor " deacons," the lowest order of your min- 
istry, are thus instructed by Paul, " Let the deacons 
be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children 
and their own houses well." 1 Tim. 3 : 12. 

Now, dear sir, put these things together, and see 
in what a position they place you ! Peter, your first 
pope, had a wife ; and you damn to the depths of 
perdition any pope that would, in this respect, follow 
pope Peter ! Challoner says that he had no com- 
merce with his wife after he was made an apostle ! ! 
Will you tell me how Challoner found that out ? 
Deacons and bishops are commanded, or at least per- 
mitted to have wives, and you would empty the 
seven vials of your wrath, and pour all the anathe- 
mas of Trent upon the head of the priest or bishop 
that, in obeying God, would disobey your church ! 
Is it possible for you and the Bible to be in more 
direct opposition ? Is it wrong to conclude that, in 
thus forbidding to marry, your church gives at least 
one evidence that it is the Antichrist ? Will you 
favor me, dear sir, with a common-sense exposition 
of the meaning of Paul, 1 Tim. 4: 3, where lie 
brands "forbidding to many" as a doctrine of 
"devils?" If half as literal in the exposition of 
Paul, as in your exposition of, "this is my body," 



64 kibwan's letters 

"this is my blood/' how will you avoid the infer- 
ence that you are a devil ? 

Again ; your church enjoins confession, under the 
most stringent rules. To this I have already ad 
verted in former letters. I advert to it again tc 
illustrate how you teach for doctrines the command 
ments of men. The Council of Trent teaches that 
"it is the duty of every man who hath fallen after 
baptism to confess his sins at least once a year to a 
priest." It teaches that " this confession of sin is to 
be secret, for public confession is neither commanded 
nor expedient." It teaches that " this confession of 
sin must be very exact and particular, together with 
all circumstances, and that it extend to the most 
secret sins, even of thought or against the 9th or 10th 
Commandment." You know you omit the 2nd 
Commandment which forbids your bowing to pic- 
tures and images, and divide the 10th into two, so as 
to make up the 9th and 10th, and thus complete the 
number. On receiving confession as thus ordained, 
the priest pronounces absolution upon the penitent, 
" not conditional or declarative only, but absolute 
and judicial." When I remember the use which 
your church has made of this doctrine, and the fearful 
power which it gives the priest over the people, my 
heart swells with emotion as I pen these lines ; and, 
like the angel of Manoah's sacrifice, my thanksgiv- 
ings ascend to heaven, that I have escaped the snare 
of the fowler. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 65 

Now, Sir, let me again turn querist and ask you 
where in the Bible do you find your doctrine of con- 
fession taught ? With me the teachings of all your 
Councils weigh not a feather ; give me, if you can, 
Bible authority. Is there one text from Genesis to 
Revelation, which you, as a scholar, will say teaches 
it ? I put this question to you, not as a bishop, but 
as a scholar. A priest from Maynooth, taught there 
only to mumble the Missal ; or a poor unlettered 
peasant from Mayo or Galway, into whose lips words 
are put, as into the mouth of a parrot, might quote 
to me James v. 16, which says, "Confess your 
faults one to another ;" but will you do it ? They 
might tell me that the Pharisees were baptized of 
John Baptist, " confessing their sins" — that atEphe- 
sus, " many that believed came and confessed, 
and showed their deeds" — but will you do it ? If 
James is your authority, are not you bound to con- 
fess to me, if I am to you ? " Confess your faults 
one to another ;" — if this text teaches auricular con- 
fession, I hold you to it. When did you put the 
poor Irishman, who whispered his sins into your ears, 
in your seat in the Confessional, and kneeling down 
outside, whisper through the little square hole cut 
in its side, your sins into his ear ? This would be 
confessing your sins one to another. Did you ever 
do this, Sir? Never, never. I ask you again, not 
as a bishop, but as a scholar, whether a single text 
quoted by Challoner, or Butler, or ] lay, gives a sha- 
dow of countenance to your doctrine of confession ? 
0* 



66 kirwax's letters 

Lay aside your mitre, your crosier, your crook, and 
your canonicals, and look at those texts as simple 
John Hughes, and then answer my question. How 
can you account to man or to God for the erection 
of such an awful institution as Auricular Confession, 
upon the merest perversion of Scripture, a perver- 
sion which has neither sense nor wit to excuse it, 
and without a solitary text or example in the Bible 
to sustain it ? O, why will you do as a priest, 
what you would not do as a scholar, or as a man ? 

And, then, what aggravates the whole matter is, 
that every man who is made a priest, no matter how 
ignorant or wicked, feels himself divinely appointed 
of heaven to confess sinners, and to absolve them 
from their sins ! No matter if he is a Judas, he has 
the same authority to confess and absolve as Peter ! 
A priest, Sir, under your own jurisdiction, and I am 
sorry to say, an Irishman also, was heard thus to 
address the ostler of the hotel at which he boarded, 
on returning from Mass on Sabbath afternoon, 
" Pat, get up my horse, I have to go and confess a 
poor devil who is dying five or six miles out in the 
country." I would not say this wretch is a fair sam- 
ple of all your priests : I hope otherwise. But there 
are too many like him ! And he has the same 
power to confess and absolve that you have, against 
whose character I know nothing, save that you sus- 
tain a system which you must know to be as false 
as the Koran. 

I would implore you, my dear sir, to review this 






TO BISHOP HUGHES. 67 

doctrine of your church. As to the word of God it 
is baseless as the fabric of a vision. It was un- 
known in the Jewish church ; it is untaught in the 
Christian Scriptures. It crept into your church 
during the dark ages. It was nailed upon it at 
Trent. It is clearly a device of man, and in terri- 
ble opposition to some of the plainest precepts of 
God's word. It gives power to the priest, and en- 
slaves the people. It has been to your church, in 
every land, a fearful source of corruption. Every 
thing is beneath you but the truth. Reject the lie, 
however long it may have been told, and however 
it may increase your income and influence. No 
longer prostitute your fine talents and education in 
maintaining this religious juggle, but send the sin- 
ner to the cross, telling him that whosoever shall 
there confess and forsake his sin, shall find mercy. 
In this thing show yourself a man ; and the bless- 
ings of unborn generations will be upon you. 

And could I address myself to every papist upon 
whom the sun shines, I would say to them all, and 
especially to those of your country and mine, the, 
doctrine of confession is a priestly device to gain an 
absolute authority over your consciences. You are 
no more bound to confess to a priest, than he is to 
confess to you. And as to the doctrine of Absolu- 
tion, connected with Confession, it is simply blasphe- 
my. God only can forgive sin. And were it not 
for the fees connected with your Confession and Ab- 
solution, there is not a priest upon the face of the 



68 KIRWAx's LETTERS 

earth that would care a straw about your Confes- 
sion, or that would commit the blasphemy of for- 
giving your sins. If bishops or priests will not, in 
this day of light, cut in pieces the net wove in the 
dark ages to confine and trammel you, it is in youi 
power to rise and tear it in pieces. Irish Roman 
Catholics ! our fathers fought and bled and died, to 
obtain for themselves and for us civil liberty. Their 
blood shed by British bayonets in these struggles for 
their civil rights, have crimsoned every stream and 
fattened every field of Ireland. And will you, their 
sons, bow your necks to a priestly tyranny, which 
debases you mentally and morally ? Will you give 
yourselves to be led, and rode, and robbed, by priests 
who come to you pretending that the keys of heaven 
hang by their girdle, and that it is with them to let 
you in, or shut you out at pleasure ? No man can 
be a slave whilst his soul is free ; nor can any man 
be free, whilst his soul is in bondage. 

There is, Rev. sir, one confession which I freely 
make to you ; my spirit waxes warm when I think 
or write upon the absurdities of your church — upon 
its flagrant perversions of the Scriptures — upon its 
shameful impositions upon the ignorant and credu- 
lous — upon the unblushing effrontery with which it 
teaches for divine doctrines the commandments of 
men. And I assure you that my warmth of feeling 
is not diminished when I consider that a man of 
your character and country, could consent to be a 
chief workman in this bad business. Irishmen have 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 69 

their faults ; but they are not usually those of du- 
plicity, or perversion of the truth. And, hence, 
whilst they may make good papists, they make bad 
1 Fesuits. 

I regret to find that I must end this letter without 
ending my illustrations of the way and manner in 
which you teach for doctrines the commandments 
of men. This I hope to do in my next. 
With great respect, yours, 

Kirwan. 



LETTER IX. 

Reasons which prevent from returning to the papal church continued — Pur- 
gatory — Transubstantiation. 

My dear Sir, — I will proceed with the statement 
of the reasons which prevent me from returning to 
the pale of your church. I have reached my fifth 
reason ; your teaching for doctrines of divine au- 
thority the commandments of men. I entered upon 
the illustration of the way in which you do this in 
my last, and without ending my illustrations ended 
my letter. Permit me to state a few more, for your 
candid consideration. 

The doctrine of Purgatory is one of the peculiar 
doctrines of your church. You teach that nearly 
all Christians when they die are "neither so per- 
fectly pure and clean as to exempt them from the 
least spot or stain ) nor yet so unhappy as to die 



70 kirwan's letters 

under the guilt of unrepented deadly sin." It is 
for these middling Christians that you make a pur. 
gatory, where they remain until they make full 
satisfaction for sin ; and then they go to heaven. 
And the " Profession of Faith" of Pius TV. tells us 
" that the souls therein detained are helped by the 
suffrages of the faithful ; that is, by the prayers 
and the alms offered for them, and principally by 
the holy sacrifice of the Mass." And the doctrine 
of your church is so expounded upon this matter 
that but few, if any, die, however good, without 
needing purgatorial purification ; and that but few 
are so bad but that they may be there fitted for 
heaven. This you will admit is a fair statement. 
The more you get into purgatory, the more you will 
receive of the " suffrages of the faithful," that is, of 
their money. 

I have already told you my estimate of this doc- 
trine. It is that by which your church traffics in 
the souls of men ; and an amazingly profitable traffic 
it makes of it. It has placed in your possession 
riches far exceeding in value the mines of Peru. 
And because of the value of this doctrine you seek 
in all possible ways to sustain it. With me the au- 
thority of your popes and councils is not worth a 
penny. I would rather have one text of Scripture 
bearing upon the point than the teachings of as 
many such as you could string between here and 
Jupiter. Let us then look at the chief texts adduced 
to sustain a purgatory. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 71 

One of these texts is Matt. 12 : 32 : " Whosoever 
speaketh against the Holy Ghost it shall not be for- 
given him, neither in this world, neither in the world 
to come." Matt. 5 : 26 is another: "Verily I say 
unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence 
till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing." Both 
these, you say, refer to purgatory. From the one 
you conclude that sins may be forgiven in the nex. 
world — *from the other, that none can get out of pur- 
gatory till the last farthing is paid. Now, dear sir, 
let me ask you, how you put these texts together ? 
If sins are forgiven, how or why is payment also 
required to the last farthing ? Can I forgive a debt 
and yet require its payment ? Look at the first text 
again ; you find purgatory in it, but how ? In this 
way ; because there is a sin which will not be for- 
given in this world nor in the world to come, therefore 
there is a sin that will be forgiven in the world to 
come ! ! Such is the logic of infallible Rome ! Be- 
cause a certain sin is not to be forgiven here or 
hereafter, therefore many sins will be forgiven here- 
after ! And because " this world" and " the world 
to come" is inclusive of all time and place, Popery 
builds up a place which belongs neither to this 
world nor to the world to come, and fills it with fire, 
and calls it Purgatory ! Like Mahomet's coffin, it 
floats somewhere between heaven and hell. Into 
this world of fire you drive the souls of men as 
they leave the body, and let them out only on the 
reception of "the suffrages of the faithful" — that 



72 kirwan's letters 

is, their money ! Now, sir, what do you say to all 
this? 

But, you ask, are there not other texts quoted by 
our writers to sustain Purgatory as a Scriptural in- 
stitution ? O yes, but they are as far from the point 
as the most vivid imagination can well conceive, 
They are by the diameter of the heavens farther 
from the point, than those just quoted. Let any 
intelligent man read chapter xiv. of Challoner's 
" Catholic Christian," and he will rise from it with 
amazement that God could ever leave men to the 
folly of so perverting Scripture ; or that even the 
devil could permit them so absurdly to misapply it. 
Permit me to quote an instance by way of illustra- 
tion. We are taught in Matt. 12: 36, that we must 
give an account for every idle word in the day of 
judgment. Now how does this text prove a Purga- 
tory ? In this wise : " No one can think that God 
will condemn a soul to hell for bwery idle word; 
therefore there must be a purgatory to punish those 
guilty of these little transgressions." If you or any 
mortal man, think I am joking, let him turn to the 
chapter. Let me quote the answer in full to the 
question, Are not souls in Purgatory capable of 
relief in that state ? " Yes, they are, but not for 
any thing that they can do for themselves, but from 
the prayers, alms, and other suffrages offered to God 
for them by the faithful upon earth, which God in 
Ms mercy is pleased to accept of, by reason of that 
communion which we have with them, by being 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 73 

fellow members of the same body of the Church, 
under the same head, which is Jesus Christ.' 5 
Now, sir, if in this answer you substitute the word 
" priest" for "God," then we come to the facts in 
the case. The " alms" and the other " suffrages of 
the faithful," are pocketed by the priest. And 
purgatory was invented for the special purpose of 
securing these alms, and other suffrages of the faith- 
ful, to pope, prelates, and priests. 

Now, sir, let me ask you a few questions. Per- 
haps I have asked you too many already ; but you 
will bear with a fellow-countryman, anxious, not so 
much to embarrass you, as to bring out the truth. 
What has the blood of Christ, which cleanses from 
all sin, to do with the venial sins of those middling 
Christians who die, not good enough to go to heaven, 
nor bad enough to go to hell ? What has the blood 
of Christ, his atonement, his finished work, at all to 
do, on your plan, with the saving of the sinner ? 
If my child should die and go to purgatory, would 
a thousand dollars given to you at once, have the 
same effect as a hundred dollars a year for ten 
years ? How can you tell when enough is given 
to get the soul out ; or has your purse no bottom ? 
As souls are spirits without bodies, how can you 
tell one soul from another as they issue from 
the gates of purgatory ? In the prayer " Hail 
Mary," we are made to utter at its conclusion, the 
following petition : " Holy Mary, Mother of God, 
pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our 
7 



74 KIRWAX'S LETTERS 

death /" why not solicit her to pray for us after our 
death, to get us out of purgatory ? Is it because 
you are afraid the good woman would get us out 
before the priests had gotten enough of the " alms 
and suffrages of the faithful V 

My dear sir, the absurdities connected with your 
doctrine of purgatory are sickening. It is based on 
the love of money. The bishop of Air candidly 
confesses that it is not revealed in the Scriptures. 
It came into the church in the seventh century, it 
was affirmed in the twelfth ; — it was stereotyped at 
Trent ; and fearful anathemas are hurled at all who 
deny it. It puts away the work of Jesus Christ, 
and sends the sinner, not to "the blood of sprin- 
kling," but to the fire of purgatory, in order to 
secure a meetness for heaven. And why this parody 
— this caricature of the religion of God ? Simply 
to put " the alms and the suffrages of the faithful" 
in the pockets of your priests ! What an outrage 
upon the common sense of the world to have men, 
dressed up in canonicals, teaching things as true, 
of which the beast that Balaam rode might well be 
ashamed ! 

I entreat you, my dear sir, to review this doctrine 
of your church. You, surely, must see its ab- 
surdity. Neither in the word of God, nor in the 
common reason of man, is there the shadow of an 
argument to sustain it. Nor is there a class of 
men upon the face of the earth who deserve a pur- 
gatory from which " the alms and other suffrages of 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 75 

the faithful " would never release them, as do those 
who preach up a purgatory and its fearful torments, 
for the sake of filthy lucre. But, as Father O'Leary 
said to Canning, " I am afraid many of them will 
go farther and fare worse." My high respect for 
you renders me solicitous that you should not be of 
the number. I wish you not to be one of the dumb 
herd who hold the truth in unrighteousness, and be- 
lieve a lie that they may be damned. 

Transubstantiation is another of the peculiar doc- 
trines of your church. By this you teach, that, in 
the Lord's Supper, the bread and the wine are con- 
verted into the real body and blood of Christ, by the 
consecration of the priest. The thing is so absurd 
as to confute itself; and as, therefore, to require 
from me but a brief statement. Challoner, Chap. V., 
thus states the doctrine : " The bread and wine are 
changed by the consecration into the body and blood 
of Christ." " Is it then the belief of the Church 
that Jesus Christ himself, true God and true man, is 
truly, really, and substantially present in the blessed 
sacrament ? It is, for where the body and blood of 
Christ are, there his soul also and his divinity needs 
be. And consequently there must be whole Christ, 
God and man: there is no taking him to pieces. " 
And all this is proven to demonstration by the 
quoting of the words of Christ at the institution c I 
the Supper, " This is my body," " This is my blood." 

Now, sir, if you and your church hud only the 
common sense to look for the true moaning of the 



76 eirwan's letters 

two little words "is" and "this" in the above sen- 
tences of the Saviour, it would have saved you a 
world of trouble. Look at one or two similar pas- 
sages : " The seven good kine are seven years — 
and the seven good ears are seven years." — Gen. 41 : 
26. " The seven stars are the angels of the seven 
churches." — Rev. 1: 20. "The seven heads are 
the seven mountains." — Rev. 17 : 9. The sense is 
plain here. They signify those things. So the 
word "is" may mean to signify. Now for the 
word "this." It obviously refers to the bread. I» 
will have none of your nonsense about " the sub- 
stance contained under the species." It is darken- 
ing counsel by words without knowledge. So that 
the simple, natural, reasonable, scriptural sense is * 
" This bread signifies or represents my body " — 
"This wine signifies or represents my blood." 
Just see how a little common sense simplifies every 
thing! 

Now, turning back to your interpretation, permit 
me in view of it to ask you a few questions : Did 
the apostles at the first institution of the Supper, eat 
the real body and blood of Christ ? So your churchy 
must and does teach ! What power have you, more 
than I have, to work such a miracle as to change a 
little wafer into the real body and blood of Christ ? 
If you stickle so much for the letter in your inter- 
pretation of " This is my body," " This is my blood," 
why withhold the wine from all but the priests ? 
Why give up the bread for a wafer ? If some wag 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 77 

should mix arsenic with the wafer before consecra- 
tion, would you be willing to take it after you had 
changed it into the real body and blood of Christ? 
You place great dependence on John 6 : 56. You 
take it literally. Will you take the whole connec- 
tion literally ? Then he that eateth this bread shall 
live for ever. He that eats this bread will never hun- 
ger. All that you have to do, if your principle is 
true, is to give your wafer to the poor, famishing 
Irish, and thev hunger no more ! 

But the thing is too outrageously absurd to dwell 
upon ! Nothing equals it in absurdity in all pagan- 
ism. If a man should mumble a few words over a 
stone, and tell you it was converted by these words 
into bread, what would you say to him ? If, against 
all the evidences of your senses, he should seriously 
assert that it was bread; — and if, in addition, he 
should seriously assert that unless you believed that 
stone to be bread you must be damned, would you 
not be for putting him in a strait jacket ? 

But I must bring this letter to a close. These 
are but a few of the illustrations of the way and 
manner in which you teach for doctrines the com- 
mandments of men. And without at all exhausting 
the subject, I must here close my statement of the 
reasons which forbid me to return to the pale of 
your church. When I give up my Bible for thr 
commandments of men, they must have learning, 
or genius, or wit, or something to recommend them. 
7* 



78 kirwan's letters 

They must be, at least, good nonsense, which, you 
know, to an Irishman is quite interesting. 
With great respect, yours, 

KlRWAN: 



LETTER X. 

Is the Church of Rome a Church of Christ ? 

My dear Sir, — I have with all frankness and hon- 
esty stated to you the reasons which yet prevent me 
from returning to the pale of your church. And al- 
though I have stated but five, which are scarcely a 
tithe of those that press themselves forward for 
utterance, yet, if not to you, they are to myself and 
I think are to all unbiassed minds entirely sufficient. 
I have even the faith to believe that you yourself 
will deem them sufficient ; and that were it not for 
the peculiarity of your position, and your plighted 
oath, to sustain your church, right or wrong, that 
they would have the same effect upon your mind 
and conduct that they have upon mine. 

Whilst reviewing and weighing these reasons, the 
questions have arisen before my mind, Is the Roman 
Catholic, a church of Christ ? Has it so far depart- 
ed from the truth, or so grievously perverted it, as to 
forfeit all claim to that title ? These are questions of 
grave import, which I will not undertake to decide. 
But I wish to state to you, in the present letter, how 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 79 

some things bearing on these questions strike me, 
and then I will submit the decision of them to your- 
self. To this, surely, you will make no objection. 

The external organization of your church is ob- 
viously not that taught by Christ and his Apostles. 
As to this matter, every thing in the Bible is simple. 
The kingdom of Christ is not of outward observation — 
its seat is in the hearts and affections of men — its ele- 
ments are righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy 
Ghost. The great object of the Apostles and first 
preachers of the doctrines of Christ was to win men 
to the belief and to the practice of the truth. When 
men believed the truth, they were baptized, and were 
thus introduced into the communion of the saints ; and 
not a word is said about popes, patriarchs, cardinals, 
metropolitans, prelates, or of the duty of implicit 
obedience to their authority. There is a government 
enjoined, but it is as free and as simple as one can 
well conceive ; whilst yours is as desputic, and as 
absurdly pompous as one can well imagine. As 
your external organization is not taught in the Bible, 
where did you get it ? 

The answer to this question to my mind is plain. 
As the early Church advanced in numbers, influence, 
and wealth, it gradually lost the martyr spirit of its 
founders. Its ministers became corrupt, secular, and 
ambitious. By degrees, bishops, from an office, be- 
came an order. As Rome was the metropolis of the 
world, and it was there that the greatest number of 
martyrs had shed their blood, the bishop of the metro- 



80 kirwan's letters 

politan city soon became pre-eminent among hi* 
brethren. Now the State sought the influence of the 
church to assist in maintaining its authority; and the 
church sought the influence of the State to assist in 
building up its ghostly dominion. Each yielded to 
the request of the other. The church rapidly ex- 
tended ; and the ambition of priests conceived the 
idea of governing it after the model of the state. 
Rome must be the centre of ecclesiastical as of civil 
.power. The State had its Caesar, — the church must 
have its pope. Csesar had his governors of provin- 
ces, — the pope must have his patriarchs. The gov- 
ernors had their subordinates ; and these again theirs, 
down to the very lowest office ; so that the patriarchs 
had their archbishops ; these their bishops ; and these 
their priests ; and so down to the very lowest office in 
the church. As in the State all civil authority ema- 
nated from Csesar, and all disputes were finally re- 
ferable to him ; so in the church all ecclesiastical 
authority emanated from the pope, and he was made 
the final judge of all disputes. Here, sir, is the origin 
of your ecclesiastical government. And did the lim- 
its of a letter permit, I could run out this parallel 
into some details which even to you would be striking 
and confounding. Your ecclesiastical organization 
has just the same divine warrant that that of Ma- 
hometanism, or Hindooism has, — God permits it . The 
Roman Empire has passed away ; ages ago it? 
mangled limbs were strewn over the earth . But in that 
ecclesiastical organization called Popery, we have 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 81 

Jie living model of that form of government by 
which the Csesars bound the nations of the earth to 
their thrones ; and by which they were enabled to 
crash, at the extremes of the world, every effort to 
break the yoke of servitude. 

How far all this bears upon the question, whether 
yours is a church of Christ, I submit to your candid 
decision. When weighing this matter, I would entreat 
you not to jeopardize your standing as a scholar and 
as a man of sense, by any reference to, " Thou art 
Peter, and upon this rock I build my church." 
Leave that thing to the boys from Maynooth, with 
long coats and short brains. 

The forms and method of your public worship are 
obviously not those taught us in the Bible. I enter 
your church, Saint Patrick's, to worship God. I am 
required to sprinkle myself with Holy Water, and to 
make on myself the sign of the cross. And why, or 
for what purpose ? That I may be defended from 
unclean spirits ! I look around me, and I see a for- 
est of candles burning upon the altar. And for what 
purpose ? where is this commanded ? I see people 
counting their beads, and praying before pictures. 
Where is ihis taught? Now comes out a priest in 
his robes embroidered with crosses. Did Peter or 
Paul wear such things when teaching Jews and Gen- 
tiles the faith of Christ? He says nothing to the 
people, but goes through the Mass in Latin, of 
whicli I may know nothing. Was this the way Peter 
and Paul did ? Then come out boys in white frocks, 



82 kirwan's letters 

with their censers, offering incense to the priest, and 
filling the church with the odour. Were Peter and 
Paul thus incensed ? The priest goes through the 
service, bowing, and kissing the altar, now lifting up 
his hands, now his eyes ; now speaking in a whisper, 
now in full voice, according to the rules laid down. 
Now, Sir, where did you get these things ? And after 
the ceremony is over, I again cross myself with Holy 
Water and retire. This is your public worship of 
God every where, and from age to age ; save, that 
in this country there is a sermon, on sticking to 
Mother Church, sometimes added. Have you the 
most distant idea that it was in this way the first 
Christians worshipped God ? The manner of your 
public worship is not scriptural, or Christian ; it is 
heathen, and was originally adopted for the seducing 
of the heathen to Christianity. If Peter or Paul 
could be introduced to Saint Patrick's when you 
were going through High Mass, and were told that 
you were one of their successors, what would be 
their astonishment ! What ! you a successor of the 
men who lived by catching fish, and mending nets, 
and making tents ! ! And that farce in which you 
are a chief actor every Sabbath, the exact counter- 
part of the worship instituted by the apostles !J Your 
manner of public worship is not only unscriptural, 
but in direct opposition to scripture ; — it wants 
nothing of heathenism but the name. And how far 
all this bears upon the question, whether yours is a 
church of Christ, I submit to your candid decision. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 83 

The Bible is God's revealed will to teach us what 
%ve should believe, and do. This Bible your church 
has corrupted, and labours to suppress. You mix up 
with the pure word of God, the Apocrypha, which 
ays no claim to inspiration, and whose internal evi- 
dences are fatal to such a claim. I need here only 
mention the recommendation of the Angel, in Tobit, 
to make smoke out of the heart and liver of a fsh, to 
scare devils out of men ! And yet this Apocrypha is 
of more use to you than all the Bible besides ! You 
mutilate the ten Commandments written on stone by 
the finger of God ! You mistranslate the Scriptures 
in passages innumerable, to bring out your peculiar 
doctrines ; or to conceal its testimony against them. 
And where the point of Scripture cannot be broken 
or blunted, you put a note at the bottom in explana- 
tion. And what notes ! Take the following as an 
illustration, appended to Rom. 4. 7. " Blessed are 
they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins 
are covered." " That is, blessed are those who, by 
doing penance have obtained pardon and remission of 
their sins, and also are covered ; that is, newly cov- 
ered with the habit of grace, and vested with the stole 
of charity." Nor is the work of corruption yet done. 
You superadd to all this your traditions, which like 
a piece of Indian rubber you can stretch or contract 
to suit your purpose. Nor can the Bible, when all 
this is done, be put into promiscuous circulation, lest, 
with all these additions and corruptions, some might 
understand it as teaching some things in opposition to 



84 KIR WAN 'S LETTERS 

popery ! You tell the poor Irishman that his spade 
and hod are better suited to him than the Bible ; and 
the poor Irish woman that she had better keep at her 
broom, and wash-tub, than trouble herself about the 
Gospels r When you corrupt the Bible to the extent 
of your ability ; when you add to it every thing you 
can, or dare : — even then you keep it from the people ' 
Why thus fearful of the Bible ? 

Now, sir, how far all this bears upon the question 
whether yours is a church of Christ, I submit to 
your own decision. As far as you can, you strive 
to supplant the Bible as the only rule of faith ; and 
as far as I am concerned, I would as soon strive to 
grope my way to heaven by the Koran, as by that 
which you give me as a substitute for the Bible. 
But I wish not to forestall your decision. 

The Sacraments, instituted in condescension to 
our weakness, are outward and sensible signs of in- 
ward and spiritual grace. These, like the Bible, 
you have enlarged and corrupted. Christ and his 
Apostles left us but two ; — you multiply them by 
three, and carry one. I only wonder how your in- 
genuity permitted you to stop at seven. Here you 
have allowed a Dr. Deacon, a dull Englishman, and, 
I believe, a Protestant in the bargain, to surpass you ! 
He adds, exorcism, the white garment, a taste of milk 
and honey, &c. How easily you might have gone 
on to seven, or even seventy times seven ! But in 
addition to multiplying, you have most grievously 
corrupted the two that are taught us in the New 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 85 

Testament. In baptism you dip or pour three 
times ; where is this taught ? Ordinarily you per- 
mit it only to be administered in churches which 
have fonts, the water of which is to be blessed every 
year on the vigils of Easter and Whit Sunday ! 
Where do you get this ? Where is your warrant 
for the absurd practice of godfathers and godmo- 
thers 1 The priest blows three times upon the face 
of the person to be baptized, saying, " Depart out 
of him or her, O unclean spirit, and give place to 
the Holy Ghost" ;— where did you get this ? He 
then puts a grain of blessed salt into the mouth ; — 
then he exorcises the unclean spirit, because the 
devil must go out, before the person is introduced 
into the church ! Then he wets his finger with his 
spittle, and touches, first, the ears, saying, " Eph- 
phatha" — then his nostrils, saying, " unto the odour 
of sweetness." "Be thou put to flight, O Devil!" 
And when baptized, a white cloth is put on his head, 
and a candle in his hand. Now whence all these 
things ? Is this a heathen ceremony, or Christian 
baptism ? 

Bad as all this is, it is strong common sense when 
compared with your corruption of the Lord's Sup- 
per. The bread and wine are rejected for a wafer 
— that wafer is converted into God — the wafer God 
is first worshipped, and then eaten ! And to believe 
all this shows great exaltation of faith and piety ! 
Some things would appear very pious were they not 
FO absurd and ludicrous. 



86 hrwan's letters 

Now, sir, how far this multiplication and corrup- 
tion of the sacraments of the Christian religion en- 
ters into the question, whether or not yours is a 
church of Christ, I submit again to your own deci- 
sion. 

Nor have you permitted a single leading doctrine 
of the Bible to escape your efforts to pervert them. 

The Bible holds up one God as the sole object of 
religious worship. You teach us to worship the 
Virgin — the host — the cross ; and to adore angels — 
departed saints — relics-r— and even pictures. 

The Bible teaches that our only access to God is 
through a Redeemer, Jesus Christ, who is made unto 
us of God, wisdom and righteousness and sanctifica- 
tion, and redemption, and that through faith in his 
name we are made partakers of the blessings of his 
work of redemption. You teach that there are 
other intercessors to whom we must apply — that our 
own works are efficacious to save us — that the sacra- 
ments have inherent power to save — that faith in 
Christ is not the true method of justification. 

The Bible teaches that we must be born again, 
created anew by the Holy Ghost. This you de- 
nounce as a false and accursed doctrine, and teach 
us that we are regenerated by baptism, and kepi in 
a state of salvation by confirmation, confession, pen- 
ance, fasts and alms. 

The Bible plainly teaches that when we die we 
go to heaven or to hell, like Lazarus and the rich 
man, that our probation is confined to the present 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 87 

state. You teach us that there is a third state, Pur- 
gatory, where souls are purified from the stains of 
venial sins, and thus prepared for heaven. And so 
on to the end of the chapter. 

Such, Reverend sir, is the way in which some 
tilings strike me, bearing on the question whether 
yours is, or is not, a church of Christ. That there 
are many papists truly pious, I believe. Bu1 
whether a church fashioned as is yours* as to its ex- 
ternal organization, after the Roman state when gov- 
erned by military despots — ^departing, in its public 
worship, in every essential particular, from that 
taught in the Scriptures ; whether a church which 
corrupts and suppresses the Bible — which corrupts 
its sacraments and its doctrines, is a church of 
Christ ; this, this, is the grave question which I now 
submit to your decision. It is said that a question 
involving a vast amount of property was once sub- 
mitted to Sir Matthew Hale. Before giving his 
opinion he was approached by the lordly defendant 
in the case with a bribe. He repulsed him with 
great indignation. His lordship complained of him 
to the king ; and the reply of his majesty was : 
" Sir Matthew makes his decisions without fear or 
favour ; he would treat me in the same way." 

All I ask of you is to decide the above question 
with the honesty of Sir Matthew. 

With great respect, yours, 

KlRWAN, 



88 kirwan's letters 



LETTER XL 

The effects of Popery on Liberty, Knowledge, Happiness, True religion. 

My dear Sir, — In my last letter, I submitted to 
your decision the question, whether or not the Ro- 
man Catholic is a church of Christ, after briefly 
stating to you how some things bearing on its truth- 
ful decision strike me. I design the present letter 
to have no very remote bearing upon the same ques- 
tion ; and would ask you to give it the degree of 
consideration to which, in candour, you may deem 
its statements entitled. 

In reading the prophecies of the Old Testament, 
I find that they all speak with the most glowing an- 
ticipations of the yet future Kingdom ot Messiah. 
That kingdom was to produce the civil, moral, and 
spiritual renovation of the world. When I turn 
over to the New Testament, I find that on the birth 
of Messiah, the Angel of the Lord stated to the 
shepherds that he came to bring them good tidings 
of great joy which should be to all people. And 
having announced the birth of the Saviour in the 
city of David, he was suddenly joined by a multi- 
tude of angels, singing, " Glory to God in the high- 
est, and on earth peace, good will toward men." 
The Old Testament and the New, — patriarchs, 
prophets, and apostles, all unite in teaching us that 
the effect of Christianity upon our world would be 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 89 

to restore it to its primeval state, and to re-instamp 
upon the heart of man the lost image of his Creator. 
Now, how far has Popery fulfilled these predictions, 
and the reasonable expectations of the faithful, 
founded on them ? In other words, what are the 
fruits of Popery ? Our Saviour tells us that a good 
tree yields good fruit, — a bad tree, bad fruit. And 
with this test in view, my object in the present letter 
is to state to you how some things strike me. 

What has been the effect of Popery upon human 
liberty ? Permit me to use the word " liberty " in 
its widest sense. As to civil liberty, it has been its 
unchanging enemy. It has never permitted a spark 
of liberty to glow for an hour when it could ex- 
tinguish it. There is not in Europe, at the present 
hour, — perhaps not on earth, — a greater civil despot 
than the Pope. The man that, in Italy, writes a 
page, or makes a speech in favour of liberty, must 
fly the kingdom, or be dragged to a dungeon. And 
we are to judge of Popery, not by its pliability 
where it cannot rule, but by the way which it shows 
its heart where it can do so without let or hinderanco. 
Kings as well as people have groaned under its 
tyranny. Henry IV. of Germany was made by tlic 
Pope to stand three days in the open air, with bare 
head and feet. Frederic I. was made to hold his 
stirrup. He caused Henry II. of England to be 
scourged on the tomb of Thomas a-Becket. And 
the present state of Spain, Austria, Italy, show the 
effects of Popery on civil liberty. 
8* 



90 KIR WAN ? S LETTERS 

It is equally the foe of mental liberty. The Bible 
is without any authority, save what your church 
gives it. And the Bible must teach nothing save 
what your church allows. And man must believe 
nothing save what the priest permits. And philoso- 
phy must teach nothing save what the church sanc- 
tions. You know that for this last offence Galileo 
was sent to study astronomy in prison. Pure popery 
and real liberty, never have breathed, and never can, 
the same atmosphere. The principle of your church 
is to allow nothing that bows not to its yoke. 

What has been the effect of popery upon liuman 
knowledge ? When Christianity like a new sun rose 
upon the world, there was much that might be called 
education in the Roman Empire. The obvious 
effect of Christianity was to extend it. After the 
lapse of some ages, popery by gradual stages crept, 
serpent-like, to the high places of power. How 
soon afterwards the lights of learning go out ; how 
soon the dark ages commence, and roll on as if they 
were never to end ! And those centuries of dark- 
ness form the golden age of your church. And 
what spirit did it manifest on the revival of learning 
in England after the sacking of Constantinople, and 
at the Reformation ? Leo X. prohibited every book 
translated from the Greek and Hebrew. This blow 
was aimed at the Bible. He forbade the reading of 
every book published by the Reformers. He excom- 
municated all who read an heretical work. The 
Inquisitors prohibited every book published by sixty- 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 91 

two different printers ; and all books printed by any 
printer who had ever published a book of heresy ! 
Nor has one of these prohibitions been ever recalled. 
At this hour, the noblest products of human genius 
are under the ban of your church ; and the Index 
Expurgatorius is in full operation at Rome ! 

And what has been the effect of all this upon 
human knowledge ? Look into the countries, for 
an answer, where your church rules undisturbed. 
The nobles and the people, in Spain, Portugal, 
Austria, Sardinia, Sicily, are sunk into almost the 
same state of ignorance. Upon the intellectual de- 
gradation of Catholic Ireland I have already dwelt. 
The Book of books which the Lamb died to unseal, 
your church has re-sealed, ; it has laid an embargo 
upon human knowledge ; it allows the people to 
read only what it permits ; and it permits only what 
tends to rivet its chains, and to perpetuate the dark- 
ness which is its natural element. When the Re- 
formation occurred, the retrograde movement of the 
world towards ignorance, and barbarism, and idola- 
try, had almost been completed. Had it not occur- 
red, a radiance might continue to gild the high 
places of the earth after the gospel sun had set — a 
twilight might be protracted for a few ages, in which 
a few might grope their way to heaven — but each 
age would have come wrapped in a deeper, and yet 
deeper gloom, until impenetrable darkness had fallen 
on the world. Even the degree of knowledge which 
has obtained in the papal world, it owes to the Re- 
formation. 



92 kirwan's letters 

And what has been the effect of popery upon the 
happiness of our race ? This is a question of wide 
bearing, yet I can do little more than glance at it. 
Has it ever laid out its energies for the promotion of 
human happiness ? If so, when and where ? Has 
it not, on the other hand, set itself in opposition to 
every thing calculated to promote it ? Does general 
intelligence promote it ? — Your church has always 
opposed it. Does the free circulation of the Word 
of God promote it ? — You have opposed this, also. 
Does the inculcation of pure religion promote it ? — 
You have poisoned, or closed up all its fountains. 
Does advancing civilization promote it ? — Your ef- 
forts are untiring to reverse its wheels and to roll us 
back to the darkness of the dark ages, whose very 
light was darkness. But what can I say more ? for 
the time would fail me to tell of your monasteries 
and nunneries — of the wars which popery has ex- 
cited—of its crusades — of the bitter jealousies it has 
sown between states — of the oceans of blood it has 
shed to obtain its objects — of the Inquisitions it has 
erected to torture the unbelieving — and of the way 
and manner in which it has caused those of whom 
the world was not worthy, to have trial of cruel 
mockings and scourgings ; yea, moreover of bonds 
and imprisonment : how it caused them to be stoned, 
to be sawn asunder, to be slain with the sword ; to 
wander about in deserts and in mountains, in dens 
and caves of the earth. O ! Sir, the pathway of 
popery through the world is marked by the blood 
and bones of its victims. It has gone into the earth 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 93 

feeling that Joshua's commission on entering Canaan 
was in its pocket ; and that all who questioned its 
authority were Hittites and Amorites. And almost 
without a figure of speech it can be said, that the 
nations which it found as the garden of the Lord, it 
converted into a howling wilderness. I know not 
that human happiness has ever had a more deter- 
mined foe than popery. 

What is the influence of popery as to the exercise 
of Christian charity ? By charity I mean not alms- 
giving, nor yet the love of God which the Spirit in- 
spires in the soul, but that grace which induces love 
to those who differ from us, and to cast a mantle over 
their defects. The Bible teaches us to do good to 
all as we find opportunity — to love our enemies — to 
treat with kindness those who despitefully persecute 
us. How does your church obey these injunctions 
of Christ the Lord ? Let your inquisitions — your 
auto da fe's — your Bartholomew's day — your Irish 
massacre — your yearly anathemas against heretics 
— your consigning to perdition all beyond the pale 
of your church, answer. All non-papists you place 
beyond the pale of mercy — you refuse their bodies 
Christian burial, if such your burial can be called 
— you convert into the bitterest enemies of the man 
that becomes a Bible Christian, those of his own 
household — you make the poor Irish servant to feel 
that his master, and her mistress are the enemies of 
God, however pious, whose reading of the Bible, 
and whose prayers to hoaven cannot be heard with- 



94 KIR WAN'S LETTERS 

out committing great sin — you enact a ceremonial 
law, and proclaim that all who submit not to it are 
speckled with plague spots. And, hence, your 
priests, wherever located in Protestant communities, 
instead of going about, as men, to promote the gen- 
eral welfare, move about as spectres, as if afraid of 
the light of day ; here abstracting a child from a 
Sunday school ; there burning a Bible ; here poi- 
soning the mind of a servant against his master, and 
there that of a maid against her mistress ; — and 
seeking to place all save his own unlettered fol- 
lowers, like the lepers of Samaria, without the city 
of God. Does this look like the spirit of Christ ? 

What is the influence of popery on true religion ? 
To this point I have already spoken. I have told 
you, sir, how it has corrupted our Rule of Faith, 
and the sacraments, and the doctrines of the Bible. 
This is but the theory of the matter ; — O, how can 
I speak of its practical effects ? The religion of 
Christ it has converted into a system of idolatry in 
which God and witches — the Bible, and traditions, 
canons, decretals — the worship of God and of saints 
— the mediation of Christ and of Mary — prayer and 
scourging — pious deeds, penances and processions, 
are all of like authority, and like efficacy ! 

The mind of the poor papist it fills, not with light 
and love, but with darkness and fear. It closes to 
him the way to heaven through the blood of Christ, 
and opens it through the fires of purgatory. Leav- 
ing him in doubt as to where he will succeed best, 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 95 

he now prays for pardon to God — now to the Virgin 
now to Peter or Paul — now before some old picture 
almost obliterated by age — believing alike the truths 
of scripture, and the absurdities of your system, and 
knowing little of either. 

It impresses the poor papist with the idea that re- 
ligion consists, not in love to God and man, but in 
external submission to rites and forms. Hence, 
the Spaniard will go to confession with his dagger 
under his mantle — and the poor, generous Irishman, 
will go from the Mass and Missal to the pot-house. 
And your inquisitors have gone out from your eu- 
charist to kindle the fires which consumed your 
heretics and our martyrs, and which illumined their 
pathway to glory ! 

But I must stop, lest my emotions swell beyond 
due bounds. 

These, Rev. sir, are some, and but some of the 
fruits of your system. How do they appear to you 
when thus brought together ? Is the tree which 
bears these fruits good, or bad ? Has popery, in 
any one particular, in any one country, or in any 
age, ever produced the results which prophets and 
apostles have told us the religion of Messiah would 
produce ? If not, are not popery and Christianity, 
«ot only different, but antagonist systems ? 
With great respect, yours, 

KlRAVAIf. 



96 kirwan's letters 



LETTER XII. 

Conclusion of the whole matter. 

My dear Sir, — The letters which I have had 
the honour of addressing to you, I must now bring 
to a close. I have stated to you, with all frankness 
and sincerity, my reasons for leaving the church in 
which I was born, baptized, and confirmed ; and 
which, on the most mature deliberation, yet prevent 
me from returning to it. I can assure you, on the 
word of an Irishman, and which is far more, on the 
word of a Christian, that I have had no end in view 
but the exposure of error, and the development of 
the truth. Thirty years have almost run their 
course since I left your church ; and although not 
utterly unknown to the men of our age, nor unsoli- 
cited, these letters form my first appearance on 
popery. Unless some unexpected ripple is excited 
on the current of my feelings, they will, probably, 
form my last. 

Now, dear sir, what think you of these reasons 1 
Are they, or are they not, sufficient to excuse, to 
forbid my return to your church ? Had I an ear 
sufficiently acute to hear the decision of your con- 
science, I believe in my soul that it pronounces them 
sufficient. Yes, I believe, that were it not for your 
sad doctrine of Infallibility, which stereotypes and 
perpetuates every absurdity, you and multitudes like 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 97 

you, men of sense and education, would rise and 
cast a fire-brand amid the rubbish which ignorance 
and wickedness have, in the progress of ages, col- 
lected around your church, and send its smok^ 
heavenward like the smoke of a furnace. But, Sir, 
I am not ignorant of the slow progress of truth 
against bigotry — of the great difficulty of exchang- 
ing bad opinions and customs, hallowed by usage, 
for better ones. Nor have I read history so inatten- 
tively as not to learn from it the great difficulty of 
converting high ecclesiastics to the knowledge of the 
truth. The mitre has shielded many a head from 
the weapons of sense and logic ; and under the sur- 
plice many a conscience has gone to rest that, with- 
out it, would have contended to the death for the 
faith once delivered to the saints. I must not forget 
that it was the high priest who occupied Moses' seat 
that put our Lord to death ; nor can I forget that 
those claiming to be the successors of Peter, and the 
vicegerents of Christ, have been the greatest perse- 
cutors of the saints. They have shed Christian 
blood enough for pope and cardinals to swim in. 
Would to God that you could see things as I see them ; 
your influence would be strong in freeing our fellow- 
countrymen from that bondage of the soul which 
most degrades them. But despairing of this, I turn 
from you to the victims of your system. Roman 
Catholics, and especially Irish Roman Catholics, 
to you I now turn. From your bishop, whom, 
with you, I respect as a man, though I oppose 



98 

his religious principles, I appeal to you. With 
you is the power to bring to a perpetual end that 
system of ghostly tyranny the most oppressive that 
man has ever felt. Subjects and sceptres depart 
together ; the farce of the Mass will soon end when 
there are none to witness it, — and popes, bishops, 
and priests will soon seek an honest calling when 
there are none to be edified by their jugglery, — 
when " the alms and the suffrages of the faithful " 
cease to flow. 

Will you give an honest perusal to these letlers . 
and candidly weigh the reasons and the arguments 
which they contain ? That I was born in Ireland, 
is my pride. My sympathies are all with Ireland 
in its civil, social, and moral degradation. The 
blood of my kindred, shed to defend it agains* 
English oppression, mingles with its soil. Your pre 
sent feelings as to your church, I have had, and in 
all their force. I can entirely appreciate them. ] 
have cordially hated Protestantism and Protestants ; 
and I have seen the time when I regarded the man 
as my personal enemy who would utter a word 
against my religion. But those were the days of 
my youth, and of my ignorance. When I became 
a man, I put away childish things. And my reasons 
for so doing are spread out before you in these letters ; 
and all I ask of you is, kindly and candidly to con- 
sider them, and then to act accordingly. If they 
are not sufficiently cogent to cause you, as they have 
caused me, to leave the Church of Rome, then you 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 99 

will have my entire consent to be oppressed, fleeced, 
and ridden by your priests, as long as you live. 

Yet permit me to entreat you to give to the sub- 
ject of these letters the attention which it demands. 
I know that many of you are sincere ; but this is no 
test of truth. I know many of you to be devout ; 
but so are Mahometans and pagans. I know that 
many of you are prepared to make any sacrifice 
which religion demands. But we may give all our 
goods to feed the poor, and our bodies to be burned, 
and yet be strangers to the only true religion. My 
heart is deeply affected in view of your state. A 
noble people, you are shut out from the joys to which 
God invites you. You are hoodwinked and manacled 
by a system of the grossest fraud and delusion ; 
you are denied the common birthright of a citizen 
of the world — seeing with your own eyes and hear- 
ing with your own ears. You are robbed of the 
only volume that can guide you — and are forbidden 
to enter the way of life, save through the gate which 
is guarded by your priests. O ! suffer the entreaties 
of one who suffered as you now do under the galling 
chains of papal tyranny. Break the fetters which 
priests have forged, and in which they have bound 
you. You are now in a land where you may laugh 
at the excommunications and anathemas of popes, 
prelates, and priests. God has given you his word ; 
let no man filch it from you. God has given you a 
mind, to think for yourselves ; let no man usurp the 



100 kirtvan's letters 

power of thinking for you. God invites you to him- 
self, to receive at his own hand pardon and forgive- 
ness. O! submit not to go and pay for these, and 
on you;: knees, to a priest. Go to the Bible for your 
religion. Receive nothing as religious truth, which 
is not there taught ; and your mental, social, and 
moral regeneration is commenced. 

But you meet this appeal with the objection, that 
I am a deserter from your church ; and that I am 
not, therefore, to be heard. If your priests take any 
notice at all of these letters, I know w T ell the 
changes they will ring upon this idea. But was not 
Peter a deserter from the Jewish church ; and must 
he not be heard on that account ? Must a man who 
renounces error never be heard by those who con- 
tinue in it ? And what think you of the persecution 
by your church of those who renounce its authority ? 
To say the least of it, it is in bad company. The 
Jews put Christ to death for deserting the faith of 
Moses. The Mahometans put to death any man of 
their number who rejects the Koran for Christ. The 
Hindoos expel from their society all who reject their 
religion for ours. And popery has shed, in rivers, 
the blood of those who could not but reject its follies 
and absurdities. In this happy land, the bull of a 
pope is as harmless as a lamb — and the thunders 
of the Vatican have no lightning that injures. 
Priests may prejudice you against these letters, but 
they are the interested party, — their craft is in 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 101 

danger. And all I ask of you is, to give my rea- 
sons the candid consideration which you owe to 
yourself, and which their importance requires. 

But you may ask, What ! do you wish me to give 
up my religion ? Is not mine the oldest religion 1 
Here, I well know, is the invincible argument with 
many of you ; but has it any weight ? Are the 
oldest things always the best ? If so, then the Jews 
were right in resisting Christianity ; and the pagans 
are right in clinging to their false systems — and you 
do wrong in ever exchanging an old garment or an 
old house for a new one. But is popery the oldest 
religion ? O, no ; Christianity is older. Popery 
and Mahometanism arose at the same time, and cen- 
turies after the establishment of Christianity. They 
are alike corruptions of the religion of Jesus, though 
the prophet has apostatized farther than the pope. 
They both appeal to the senses, and are both idola- 
trous. If the pope has his holy water, the prophet 
has his holy well. If the one has his holy bones, and 
coats, and relics, the other has his holy pieces of 
tapestry from the temple of Mecca. They have 
alike their pilgrimages — their senseless repetition of 
prayers — their Lents — their penances, and their ex- 
ternal symbols which alike adorn the church and 
the mosque. And if the papist can object to Chris- 
tianity, saying, Is not mine the oldest religion ? then 
can the Mahometan do the same. 

But yours is not the oldest religion. I could here 
give you the time, did the limits of a letter permit, 



102 kirwan's letters 

when the distinguishing doctrines of your church 
were introduced. The celibacy of the clergy came 
into the church in the Fourth Century ; purgatory 
appeared in the Seventh, and was affirmed in the 
Twelfth ; auricular confessions, and the worship of 
the Host, in the Thirteenth ; and so on to the end of 
the chapter. And instead of wishing you to give 
up the oldest religion, we wish you only to give up 
popery for Christianity ; — to give up the new, and 
to return to the old. All that I have done myself, 
and all that I desire you to do is, to lay aside every 
thing that pope, bishops, and priests have added to 
the religion of Jesus, and to embrace that religion 
just as it is taught in the Bible. 

Convinced that you have been deceived by those 
to whom you have been looking for guidance — that 
priests have sought your money more than your sal- 
vation — that instead of bread they have given you 
stones, and for eggs, serpents — that they have sought 
to brutalize, instead of enlightening you — to enslave 
instead of elevating you to the liberty with which 
Christ makes his people free ; do any of you inquire 
as to the course best for you to pursue ? If you 
will take the advice of one that has gone before you 
in the way, it is cheerfully given. Think not of 
giving up all religion because of the deceptions of 
popery. This was one of my mistakes. Take the 
Bible for your guide ; — that will not deceive you. 
It teaches you that you are a sinner ; this you should 
believe and feel. It teaches you that Christ died for 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 103 

sinners ; and that his blood cleanses from all sin ; 
and that to escape the wrath and curse of God due 
to you for sin, the great and the only prerequisites 
are repentance toward God, and faith in the Lord 
Jesus Christ. Give up your missal for the Bible — 
confess your sins not to your priests but to God — 
look for pardon and meetness for heaven, not to 
priestly ablutions, and eating wafers, and extreme 
unctions, but to the righteousness of Jesus Christ, 
received by faith ; and in spite of popes, prelates, 
and priests, life, eternal life, is yours. 

Wishing and praying for you all, that deliverance 
from popish thraldom in which I rejoice, and that 
gospel hope of future blessedness which is my stay 
and comfort in this vale of tears, 

I am, with great respect, yours. 

KlRWAN. 



LETTERS 



RT. REV. JOHN HUGHES, 



ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF NEW-YORK. 



SECOND SERIES. 



BY 

KIRWAN. 



i\ UW-YOUK : 
LEAVITT, TROW & CO., 191 BROADWAY. 

1848. 



Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1847, by 

SAMUEL I. PRIME. 
ia the Clerk's Office- lor the Southern District of New- York. 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction to the Second Series, 



LETTER I. 

Reasons for this Second Series — Why addressed to Bishop Hughes — 
Evil days have come upon Popery, 9 

LETTER II. 

Extreme Unction — Its meaning — The way of administering it — James 
v. 14, 15. —It enriches the Church — An Incident, . . . .16 

LETTER III. 

Penance — The pretended Sacrament described — No Scripture warrant 
for it — Its absurdities— A personal inquiry, 24 

LETTER IV. 

Miracles — Milner's vindication — Many examples — Legends of the saints 
— A miracle of my own working — Why so few miracles since the 
Reformation, 34 

LETTER V. 

Marks of the Papal being the true Church considered — Unity — Sanc- 
tity — Catholicity — Apostolicity — Infallibility, 43 

LETTER VI. 

Relics — Relics the parent of miracles — The importance of relics — Speci- 
mens of relics — The abuses of relics — Indulgences — To whom and 
by whom granted — Their fearful effects, 54 

LETTER VII. 

Unmeaningness of Romish Doctrines and Ceremonies : — Baptism — 
The Mass — Penance — Extreme Unction — Holy Water — Prayers to 
the Saints — Withholding the Scriptures, 64 






4 CONTENTS. 

LETTER VIII. 

The destiny of the Papacy — Its growth — Its history not yet written — 
The Reformation — Reasons for the extinction of popery — 1. Incapa- 
ble of reformation — 2. Its reformation impossible — 3. Opposed by the 
intelligence of the world — 4. By its piety — 5. The causes which 
gave it origin passing away — 6. Its extinction ordained — 7. How it 
is to be done, 74 

LETTER IX. 
To all, and especially to American, Roman Catholics, .... 85 

LETTER X. 

Con elusion. The Indian devotee — Faith in Christ saves — The dying 
thief— Peter at the feast of Pentecost— The plan of Salvation— The 
Gospel and Papal way of Salvation contrasted — A call upon Irish 
Reman Catholics, 95 



INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND SERIES. 



The Letters in the New-York Observer addressed to 
Bishop Hughes, under the signature of " Kirwan," pro- 
duced, as might have been expected, an extraordinary 
sensation. They were read, not by the Bishop only, nor 
by Protestants only, but by many in the bosom of the 
Church of Rome, who were thus led to see the absurdity 
of much which they had been taught to believe. One 
edition followed another in rapid succession : they were 
translated into the German language, and published for the 
thousands flocking to our shores and speaking that tongue ; 
they were reprinted in England, and circulated among the 
Roman Catholics there and in Ireland, with what effect we 
have yet to learn. 

But the Author, in assigning to Bishop Hughes the 
reasons that prevent his return to the church in which he 
was born, baptized, and confirmed, had by no means ex- 
hausted the catalogue, and he was repeatedly called upon 
to complete the work. 

Of these calls, the following published in the Observer 
is a fair indication of the estimate in wliich the former 



6 INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND SERIES. 

series was held, and of the public desire that Kirwan 
would resume his pen. 

To the author of the letters on Romanism, lately addressed 

to Bishop Hughes through the New York Observer, over 

the signature of Kirwan : 

Sir, — Though you have chosen hitherto to keep in the 
shade in reference to the authorship of these letters, I sup- 
pose you are not buried in so deep obscurity as not to have 
some knowledge of what is passing in the world around 
you. But lest you should chance to be less knowing than 
might be presumed, I beg to state to you through your 
own channel of communication, that the letters to which I 
refer have been read by the religious community at large, 
with a degree of interest that has rarely been felt in refer- 
ence to any similar publication. If I mistake not, the 
judgment of the world is that they are characterized by a 
simplicity and perspicuity that bring them fairly within the 
scope of any comprehension ; by a force of thought and 
expression which no reflecting and impartial mind will find 
it easy to resist ; by an amount of good nature and Chris- 
tian charity which must prevent any reasonable opponent 
from taking offence ; and last, though not least, by an un- 
wonted pungency, which is likely, ere this, to have vibrated 
in a note of terror to the innermost heart of Rome. I 
believe, in common with a multitude of wiser and better 
men, that these letters have, as yet, only begun to fulfil 
their mission ; and that those who live at the ends of the 
earth, and who are destined to five in coming years, will 
look upon them as having had much to do in lifting from 
the world one of its heaviest curses. 

But my object in addressing you is something more than 
to inform you of that of which, I dare say, you need no 
information. You are aware that it is only a portion of 
the ground of the Romish controversy which your letters 
have occupied. There are many points of equal moment 
with those already discussed, which you have left un- 
touched. Allow me to say, yours is the hand to sweep 
through this whole domain of error. It would be an oc- 
casion of deep regret if you should not carry forward to 



INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND SERIES. 7 

its completion a work which you have so happily begun. 
The Christian public expect, may I not say, demand it of 
you. The multitude who are yet in the same spiritual 
thraldom from which you have escaped, demand it. Your 
country, whose political as well as religious interests 
are threatened with deadly invasion, demands it. The 
cause of an enlightened Christianity, of a sound and evan- 
gelical Protestantism, demands it. There is a requisition 
upon you, Kir wan, which I am sure you cannot resist 
without offending against the mercy that hath taken your 
own feet out of the miry clay, and established your goings. 
May the Head of the church enable you suitably to appre- 
ciate your obligations and responsibilities. Keep in the 
dark if you will : only lead others into the light of life 
and into the liberty wherewith Christ makes his disciples 
free. Be assured that in making these suggestions, I am 

One of Many. 

Obedient to these calls, and impelled by a sense of duty 
to his kinsmen according to the flesh, his countrymen and 
brethren, he has prepared this second series, in the same 
courteous and conciliatory style of the former : breathing 
the same national sympathy with Irishmen, and full of the 
humor that betrays the author's nativity, while it secures 
the attention of the reader. 

Placed in the hands of those yet in the faith of Bishop 
Hughes, these letters will be read without prejudice, and 
followed, as I trust they will be, with the enlightening and 
convincing Spirit, they will work mightily in opening the 
eyes of those now wandering in error, and leading them 
to the knowledge of the truth. 

SAMUEL IRENJEUS PRIME. 



LETTERS 



RIGHT REV. JOHN HUGHES : 

BISHOP OF NEW-YORK. 

Second Secies. 



LETTER I. 

Reasons for this Second Series — Why addressed to Bishop Hughes — Evil 
days have come upon Popery. 

My dear Sir, — When I closed the letters I had 
the honour of addressing to you during the last 
spring, I fondly hoped that my part in the thicken- 
ing controversy on Romanism in our country, had 
closed also. As those letters formed my first, I de- 
signed that they should also form my last appearance 
before the public on that topic. So I expressed my- 
self to you in my closing letter. But the unexpect- 
ed " ripple " has been " excited on the current of 
my feelings," and whether wise or otherwise, I have 
concluded again to address you. 

My reasons for so doing, and thus departing from 
my original resolution, are briefly these : The pub- 



10 krwan's letters 

lie, who have so kindly received, and so widely cir- 
culated my " Letters," have called for another 
series, embracing the reasons which I have omitted 
to state ; and which, together with those stated, for- 
bid my return to your church. At least one of the 
papers devoted to the interests of Popery in thi? 
country, calls upon me, in a semi-serious manner 
to give my views on certain points which it raises , 
individuals of your communion, who have given my 
letters a candid perusal, have asked what Kirwan 
had to say upon this and that point not considered 
by me ; and last, though not least, is a desire to put 
into the hands of every inquiring Roman Catholic, a 
complete manual of my objections to your church, 
candidly and kindly considered. These, Rev. Sir, 
are the reasons and motives, and not a love of con- 
troversy for its own sake, which induce me again to 
address you. 

While yielding to these reasons and motives, I yet 
confess to you that I deem the present series of let- 
ters, which will be brief, a work of supererogation. 
If you have never performed such a work, you know 
what it means. My conviction is, that the reasons 
given in my former letters for refusing to return to 
your church, are sufficient ; sufficient to induce any 
sane mind to withhold its faith from your teachings, 
and every sane man to abandon your church. This, 
you will say, is a partial decision ; it may be so. 
But as a tree may be held in its place by a few 
weak roots after the main ligaments that bound it 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 11 

to the earth are cut, and when the weakest wind 
that blows may cause it to totter ; so a mind, when 
the power of an ancient superstition over it is broken, 
may yet retain a connexion with it, influenced by 
reasons which seem unworthy of consideration. I 
know this to be the case. The belief in "witches 
and warls " was early impressed on the mind of 
Hume ; and it is said of him, that, after he reasoned 
matter and mind out of existence, he could not hear 
the rustling of a leaf, after dark, without starting as 
if a witch were upon him. The taste and smell of 
a sour liquid remain long in the emptied cask. 
And if any mind, rejecting the great outlines of your 
system, is yet held to it by some reasons which I 
have not considered, and whose absurdity I may be 
able to expose, I feel anxious to relieve it. I must 
not withhold from you my deep conviction that Po- 
pery is an evil tree ; that its fruits are only evil. I 
believe it to be a falling tree. Its branches are 
withering in the air, and the axe, wielded by an 
Almighty hand, is cutting its roots. And if I can 
assist in cutting a few more of its roots, and thus 
hastening its fall, I feel that I will be conferring a 
benefit upon our race, and contributing to the eman- 
cipation of millions of men from a slavery, in com- 
parison with which that of the Pharoahs was freedom. 
Hence these additional letters. And all I intend 
doing, is to state to you some farther reasons which 
forbid my return to your church. 

Before entering upon a statement of these rea- 



12 

sons, permit me to say a few things which I can 
better say in this preliminary letter than any where 
else. 

The question has, doubtless, suggested itself to 
your mind, and to the minds of others, why do I ad- 
dress these letters to you ? Some of my reasons I 
have already given you. I believe you to be a man 
of sense, of learning, and of fair character, which 
cannot be said of all papal priests. You are put 
forth, now that Bishop England, also one of our 
countrymen, is no more, as the Achilles of your 
party in these United States. If any man in the 
country can refute my reasoning and obviate my 
objections, you can do it. And as my sole object 
and aim is the truth, I have selected the man, in my 
opinion, best fitted to correct me when in error; 
when false, to show me the fallacy of my reason- 
ing, — and if he should reply, who would reply as a 
scholar and a gentleman. If you cannot confute 
me, no man of your church in these United States 
can. Nor will I consent to notice what may be said 
in the way of reply to, or abuse of these letters by 
any man, save yourself. I have, as they say, a 
drawing towards you as an Irishman — I respect 
your open and manly bearing, and, sadly as, in my 
opinion, you prostitute your talents, I have a high 
respect for them. Hence I pass through the ranks 
of soldiers, and by inferior officers, and go up to 
Achilles himself. 

But you have not answered my former letters ! 



: 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 13 

I confess to you, sir, that I had no expectation in 
writing them, that you would answer them, and for 
these reasons : First, because they are anonymous. 
And as I like not myself to contend with a masked 
opponent, so I judged of you. The text is capable 
of wide application, " as face answereth to face in 
water, so the heart of man to man." I prefer, for 
the present, to stand behind the curtain ; and for 
this, among other reasons, that you and all men may 
decide upon what I say, simply upon the merits of 
my statements and arguments ; and for the addi- 
tional reason, to prevent a personal controversy. It 
is an old trick of your church to leave the argu- 
ment for the man. And, secondly, because of their 
matter. I speak to you of what my eyes have 
seen ; of what my ears have heard ; of what my 
heart has felt. Facts are stubborn things. How 
can you make a man believe that to be sweet, which 
from actual taste he knows to be sour ? It is hard 
to reason against a man's experience. On these 
grounds I expected from you no reply. And al- 
though, unless I mistake you, not one of the little 
men who seek to put the more abundant honour on 
the part that lacketh by a mock dignity, by an as- 
sumed superiority, yet you know when to be wisely 
silent. If, sir, without compromising your crosier, — 
if, during some hours of leisure from your varied 
and manifold duties, you would consent to answer 
some of the reasons and considerations which I have 
stated, and will state in the following letters, which 
2 



14 kirwan's letters 

forbid my return to your church, there is one, at 
least, that will read your reply with great pleasure. 
I am not, sir, among those who impute your silence 
to your inability to reply to my statements ; but if I 
can only gain access to the public ear, if I can 
only obtain from candid Roman Catholics a careful 
consideration of what I say, your silence will give 
but little trouble. My object will be attained. 

Permit me to make one other remark before clos- 
ing this letter. Evil days have come upon the sys. 
tern of which you are so able an advocate. Once 
you could silence inquiry by church authority ; but, 
in this country especially, that day has passed 
away. It is passing away even under the shadow 
of the dome of St. Peter's. There are those, yet, in 
this country and in the old countries of Europe, who, 
like that useless bird of sable wing, called the jack- 
daw, which you and I have seen in our youth, love 
the narrow window, and the toppling tower, and the 
mantling ivy, who hover about whatever is ancient, 
however worthless or truthless ; but their number is 
small, and is daily diminishing. The great inquiry 
now is after the true, the scriptural, the reasonable. 
The day for the trial of all things has come. Mere 
authority in philosophy, in morals, in religion, is 
valueless. When man appeals from the Church to 
the Scriptures, it is of no avail to say to him, " be- 
lieve the Church." No appeal is admitted from the 
Scriptures to the Fathers — from the teachings of 
Paul to the decisions of Councils. Old things, if 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 15 

absurd, are passing away ; and their wrinkles only 
hasten their burial. Nor is there in the physical or 
moral sciences, nor in the science of government, 
nor in the theory of religion, a single principle that 
is not tried and sifted as if never tried before. At 
this treatment, hoary error may lift up its hands in 
holy horror, and fall back aghast as did Saul be- 
fore the ghost of Samuel ; but it cannot be helped. 
There may be, and doubtless is, a reckless specula- 
tion — a profane tampering with sacred things ; but 
nothing will eventually suffer but the truthless. And 
wlrat will become of Popery when proof and Scrip- 
ture supplant authority and credulity ? 

It becomes you, then, sir, to buckle on the har- 
ness. The battle has but begun between truth and 
error. In your soul and in mine there should not 
be a desire but for the triumph of the truth. Let 
any opinion that I hold be proved unscriptural and 
unreasonable, and I will cheerfully give it to the 
hottest furnace you can heat to consume it. Let 
the truth of God triumph, whatever human systems 
perish. Will you join me in this aspiration ? 

In my next I shall proceed with my statement of 
some of the additional reasons which prevent me 
from returning to your church. 

With great respect, yours, 

KlRWAN. . 



16 KIRWAN S LETTERS 



LETTER II. 

Extreme Unction — Its meaning — The way of administering it — James v. 
14, 15. —It enriches the Church — An Incident. 

My dear Sir, — Agreeably to the promise made 
to you in closing my last letter, I now proceed to a 
statement of the additional reasons which yet pre- 
vent my return to the pale of your church, in which 
I was born, baptized, and confirmed. I shall begin 
with your sacrament of Extreme Unction. As but 
few of your own people, and yet fewer Protestants, 
understand it, I hope you and my readers will bear 
with me even if 1 should occupy this letter with its 
consideration. When rightly understood, it is a ter- 
rible sacrament. I will strive so to explain it as to 
bring it to the level of every mind, and from your 
own standard authors which lie before me. 

The name of the sacrament explains it ; it is 
anointing by holy oil of a sick person when recovery 
is extremely doubtful. This, and the fact that it is 
supposed to be the last act of religion, give it its 
name. The object of this anointing is thus explain- 
ed by the doctors of Trent : " The devil is always 
busy in seeking to destroy the souls of men ; yet it 
is at the hour of death that he most vehemently ex- 
erts all his power ; and the object of this anointing 
by holy oil is to fortify the soul in the dying hour 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 17 

against the violent attacks of its spiritual enemies, 
and to enable it to make a holy death, and to secure 
a happy eternity." 

The only person who can administer this sacra- 
ment is a bishop or priest. You admit a midwife, 
or a layman, to baptize ; but a priest only can ad- 
minister Extreme Unction. The reasons for this 
will appear in the sequel. 

The oil used in this sacrament must not be com- 
mon oil. That the effects intended may be pro- 
duced, it must be oil of olives, " solemnly blessed by 
the bishop every year on Maunday-Thursday." I 
quote from Challoner ; the sentence leaves it doubt- 
ful whether the efficacy of the bishop's blessing con- 
tinues only a year, or whether the oil used must be 
blessed on that day. It has what is called in rheto- 
ric, a squinting construction. As the bishop is paid 
for blessing it, it is probable he blesses but little at 
once, and that he gives it efficacy but for a limited 
time. 

The effects and fruits of this anointing are these : 
it remits sins, at least such as are venial : it heals 
the soul of its infirmity and weakness ; and helps to 
remove the debt of punishment due to past sins ; it 
strengthens the soul to bear the illness of the body, 
and to repel its spiritual enemies ; and " if it he ex- 
pedient for the good of the soul, it often restores the 
health of the body." I wish you, Sir, and my read- 
ers, to ponder the sentence in italics. Its meaning 
is this : if the person is restored, it is a miracle 
2* 



18 kirwan's letters 

wrought by extreme unction ; if he dies, restoration 
would not conduce to the health of his soul ! ! 

The manner of administering this sacrament is 
as follows : If the time permits, certain prescribed 
prayers are said — the Confiteor is repeated, and ab- 
solution is granted — then the priest, making thrice 
the sign of the cross, says, " In the name of the Fa- 
ther, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, may all 
the power of the devil be extinguished in thee, by 
the laying on of our hands, and the invocation of the 
holy angels, archangels," &c. Then dipping his 
thumb in the holy oil, he anoints the sick person in 
the form of a cross, upon the eyes, the ears, the 
nose, the mouth, the hands, and feet ; at each anoint- 
ing making use of this form of prayer : " Through 
this holy unction and his own most tender mercy, 
may the Lord pardon thee whatever sin thou hast 
committed by thy sight. Amen." And the same 
prayer is repeated, adapting the form to the several 
senses. 

The requisite dispositions in the receiver are, 
faith in the sacrament — a pure desire for the health 
of his soul, and of his body if expedient — resigna- 
tion — repentance — devotion . 

In case of recovery and relapse, it may be repeat- 
ed, and as often as the person relapses. 

And your scriptural authority for all this you find 
in James v. 14, 15, which you thus translate : "Is 
any sick among you ? Let him bring in the priests 
of the Church, and let them pray over him, anoint- 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 19 

ing him with oil in the name of the Lord ; and the 
prayer of faith shall save the sick man, and the Lord 
will lift him up : and if he be in sin, his sins will be 
forgiven him." 

Such is your Extreme Unction, as described by 
the Council of Trent, Challoner, and the Poor Man's 
Catechism. Although abridged, you, at least, will 
say that it is a perfectly fair abridgement. Let us 
now examine it in the light of Scripture and reason. 

I ask you to look at your Greek Testament, and 
then to answer me on what authority you thus trans- 
late a portion of the 14th verse of James v. ; "let 
him bring in the priests of the Church ? Ah ! the 
priests, the priests ; this sacrament is for their bene- 
fit ; and by a mis-translation, the power of anointing 
and praying must be confined to them ! 

But does the text afford the shadow of a support 
to the sacrament ? No, not even the shadow. You 
utterly pervert the meaning of the apostle. The 
anointing and prayer of James is for the life of the 
sick ; your anointing is for their death, and is never 
administered whilst there is any hope of life. The 
anointing of James is for the cure of the body ; — 
yours is for the cure of the soul, in reference to 
which the text gives no direction. The saving of 
the sick, and the forgiveness of sins, are in conse- 
quence of the prayer of faith. Can none but a 
priest offer that prayer? The anointing of James 
and the prayers to be ofFercd were to be followed 
with miraculous recovery ; yours are to be followed 



20 KIR WAN'S LETTERS 

with speedy death. The cures wrought by the 
anointing of James, were for the establishment of 
the claims of the Gospel : — yours, for the purpose 
of establishing the ghostly authority of your priest- 
hood. That text above quoted is confessedly the only 
one on which you build your sacrament ; and that 
text must be mistranslated, and utterly tortured out 
of its sense, and meaning, and end, even to afford a 
pretext to the use which you make of it. And this 
is but one of the many instances in which your 
church has changed and perverted the original 
meaning of the Scriptures, and forged them into 
chains to bind men to your system of delusion. 

Having thus swept from your extreme unction 
the only scriptural authority claimed for it, and 
hung it up as a commandment of men, I have a few 
questions to ask in reference to it. 

Is it so that God's people need the oil of olives, 
blessed on Maunday-Thursday, to be placed upon 
their eyes, and nose, and ears, and tongue, and 
hands, and feet, to secure the remission of their sins ; 
and to heal the maladies of their souls, and to ena- 
ble them to repel their spiritual enemies ? If this 
oil can do it, what need is there of the blood of 
Christ ? If the blood of Christ, and the presence of 
his Spirit can do it, what is the need of this olive oil ? 

But again ; you require in the receiver of this 
sacrament, the dispositions stated above. Those are 
truly Christian dispositions, bating a few things in 
your manner of stating them. If these dispositions 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 21 

are possessed, will not the soul of the person be sav- 
ed without your olive oil ? If not possessed, will 
your olive oil save them ? 

Again ; among the effects of this sacrament, as 
stated in the Poor Man's Catechism, p. 329, is this : 
" it brings him (the sick man) in safety to the port 
of eternal happiness." Now, Sir, does extreme 
unction save from purgatory ? This you will not 
say. If not, then it only takes him to the port of 
eternal happiness. From the port he is turned into 
purgatory. And your priests get paid for the olive 
oil by which he slips safely to the port of eternal 
happiness — and then they get paid for the masses by 
which they get him out of purgatorial fires into hea- 
ven ! So that extreme unction is simply a device to 
increase " the alms and the suffrages of the faithful." 

Again ; what a low and sad view of the religion 
of God does this sacrament give to a dying man ! 
It is administered to all that seek it on a dying bed. 
Let us suppose a case, which, no doubt, often oc- 
curs. There is a papist in the article of death. To 
this hour he has lived in sin. Feeling that death is 
upon him, he sends for his priest. He thinks now 
of nothing but confession — the eucharist, and ex- 
treme unction. The priest appears in his robes. If 
the sick man is able, he confesses. If not able, the 
anointing commences, and proceeds in the way al- 
ready stated. lie is crossed and anointed on his 
eyes, his nose, his tongue, his oars, his hands, and 
feet, and the prescribed prayers are said. The man 



22 hrwan's letters 

now dies in peace, feeling that his sins are remit- 
ted — that his soul is healed of its infirmities — that 
his spiritual enemies are all subdued, through the 
efficacy of olive oil, blessed on Maunday-Thursday ! 
Not a thought of the dying man is directed to the 
cross of Jesus Christ, or to the efficacy of his atone- 
ment ! So that extreme unction is a papal incanta- 
tion, by which the priest makes a deluded people to 
believe that the keys of heaven and hell hang by his 
girdle — that by his olive oil he can procure for them 
all that the Bible suspends on faith in Jesus Christ ! 
Esteem me not harsh, Rev. Sir, when I declare it 
as my deep conviction, that by your sacrament of 
extreme unction, your church is deluding and damn- 
ing multitudes of souls, and from year to year. It 
is a wicked substitution of olive oil for the blood of 
Christ at the dying hour, and simply and only for 
the benefit of your priests. 

And what a tremendous use your church has 
made of it. Gaining access to the dying beds of 
kings, princes, and barons, in past days, with your 
olive oil, you have extorted millions of money from 
those who believed in your ghostly power. You 
have thus enriched the church and impoverished 
the people. You have built palaces for your bish- 
ops, and reduced the people to beggary. What will 
a dying sinner withhold from a man who, he believes, 
has the power to lock him up in hell : or by a little 
olive oil rubbed on with his thumb, can conduct him 
to the port of eternal happiness I 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 23 

The man yet lives who narrates the following 
scene, of which he was an eye and ear witness. 
The chief of one of our Indian tribes, a man of great 
sagacity and decision, was on his dying bed. Many 
of his people, by a French Jesuit, were converted 
to the faith of your church. He knew the wiles of 
your missionary, and forbade him admission to his 
dying bed. The priest came with his olive oil, and 
pressed so hard for admission to him, that it was 
granted. " Stay," said the dying chief to the man 
who relates the story, " stay outside the door, and 
if I knock, come in." The priest entered, and the 
door was closed. Soon a violent knock is heard, 
and the man enters the room. " Take him out," 
said the dying chief; " take him out — land — land — 
give me land." The priest would put on the olive 
oil, but wanted first a grant of land. 

Rev. Sir, your church must annul this sacrament 
of extreme unction, before I can return to its em- 
brace. To my mind it is extreme nonsense. Should 
not incantations over dying men be left to Hotten- 
tots ? I implore you to seek some other market for 
your olive oil, than the chambers of the dying. 
With great respect, yours, 

KlRWAN. 



24 kirwan's letters 



LETTER III. 

PENANCE. 

The pretended Sacrament described — No Scripture warrant for it — Its ab- 
surdities — A personal inquiry. 

My Dear Sir : — With your leave, I will proceed 
with my statement of the reasons which prevent my 
return to the embraces of your church. Permit me 
to ask, in the present letter, your consideration of 
the reason which I deduce from your sacrament of 
Penance. It presents an objection as strong as your 
sacrament of Extreme Unction, which, without 
meaning to be irreverent, I have already pronounced 
Extreme Nonsense. 

As but few, even of your own people, understand 
this sacrament, I will give a brief statement of it, 
and from your own authors. 

Penance is a sacrament by which the sins com- 
mitted after baptism are forgiven. Your doctrine is, 
that original sin is washed away in baptism ; and 
that penance secures the forgiveness of all sins com- 
mitted after baptism! Where is this distinction 
taught in the Bible ? 

On the part of the penitent, penance consists in 
contrition, confession, and satisfaction. Contrition is 
a hearty sorrow for sin, with a resolution to sin no 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 25 

more ; confession is a full and sincere declaration of 
all our sins to a priest ; satisfaction is a faithful per- 
formance of the prayers and good works enjoined by 
,the confessor. So far for the penitent. 

On the part of the priest, it consists in the absolu- 
tion which he pronounces by the authority of Jesus 
Christ. The form of absolution is in these words : 
" I absolve thee from thy sins, in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 

The effects of this sacrament are thus stated in 
the " Poor Man's Catechism :" " It remits all the 
sins of the penitent without exception — restores him 
to the grace he had forfeited — replenishes his soul 
with the greatest peace, tranquillity, and spiritual 
delights, and reinstates him again in the friendship 
of God, as the prodigal son, after his return, was re- 
stored to his former honours in the house of his fa- 
ther." Wonderful results from such causes ! May 
I ask here, if the parable of the prodigal son is meant 
to represent the way of return of a sinner to God, 
where did he stop to make confession and receive 
absolution ? 

None but a priest can grant absolution ; and 
the power of the priest to absolve, you draw from 
John xx. 22, 23 : " And when he had said this, he 
breathed on them, and said unto them, Receive ye 
the Holy Ghost. Whosesoever sins ye remit, they 
are remitted unto them ; and whosesoever sins ye 
retain, they are retained," and from Matt. xvi. 15-19. 

Such, Sir, in brief, is your sacrament of penance. 
8 



26 kirwan's letters 

Let us now look at it in the light of Scripture and 
reason. 

And let me first ask you, how do you make a sac- 
rament of penance ? Look at Chaloner's definition 
of a sacrament : " It is an outward sign or ceremony 
of Christ's institution, by which grace is given to the 
soul of the worthy receiver.' 5 Now, what is the 
outward sign of penance ? It has no outward sign, 
no external ceremony. It is not a sacrament, ac- 
cording to your own rules. Your absolution is a 
different thing from your penance. 

Again, two of the constituent elements of penance, 
confession and absolution, have no foundation in 
Scripture. Of confession I have already spoken. I 
have shown it to be a priestly device of the most fa- 
tal influence upon human liberty : its tendency to 
the corruption of morals is acknowledged. There is 
on my table a book, called " The Garden of the 
Soul," bearing on its title page your own name ; and 
such a garden ! Now, conceive yourself sitting in 
your confessional, and whispering through the little 
hole in its side, in the ears of a modest or immodest 
young girl of eighteen, or an amiable young wife of 
twenty-one years, the questions on pages 212 and 
214 ! Sir, I dare not quote them here. I strove to 
read them to a friend a few days since, and before I 
got half through he cried out, " Stop, I can hear no 
more." The polluting confessional is a part of your 
sacrament of penance. Of absolution I shall speak 
in the sequel. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES, 2? 

Look at the texts, for a moment, which you quote 
as teaching your power of absolution. It seems to 
me that if they were capable of any other interpre- 
tation than that which you give them, you would 
prefer it, in order to get rid of the monstrous power 
with which it clothes your priests. But alas ! it is 
for the sake of that power that you pervert them. 
As there were various opinions entertained as to who 
Christ was, we hear him, in Matt. xvi. 15, asking 
his disciples, " Whom say ye that I am ? " Peter 
replies, " Thou art Christ the Son of the living God." 
Jesus replies, " Upon this rock," that is, the confes- 
sion of Peter that he was the Son of the living God, 
" I will build my Church." How simple and com- 
mon sense ! 

Addressing Peter, and through him the other dis- 
ciples, he says, " I will give thee the keys of the 
kingdom of heaven." Need I tell you, Sir, that by 
"the kingdom of heaven," here is meant the Church 
of Christ. Can such a master in Israel as you are 
be ignorant of this ? This being so, " the keys of 
the kingdom " simply means, the power of admitting 
proper persons to the Church, and excluding impro- 
per persons from it. Keys, you know, were the an- 
cient emblems of authority. How simple and com- 
mon sense is all this. 

Continuing to address Peter, and through him the 
other disciples, he says, " Whatsoever thou shalt 
bind on earth shall be bound in heaven ; and what- 
soever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in 



28 kirwan's letters 

heaven." To bind and to loose here are equivalent 
to bidding and forbidding, to granting and refusing, 
to declaring lawful or unlawful. The apostles were 
endued with the Holy Ghost, that they might infal- 
libly declare the will of God to mankind, and deter- 
mine what was, or was not, binding on the con- 
science — to show what persons ought, or ought not, to 
be admitted to the Church — and to decide on the 
characters of those whose sins were, or were not, 
forgiven. And whatever in these, or similar things, 
they bound or loosed on earth, would be bound or 
loosed in heaven. This is also the meaning of John 
xx. 22, 23, already quoted. This, Sir, I believe to 
be the common sense, the fair and just interpreta- 
tion, of a passage on which your church has built up 
a priestly power, that has overshadowed the earth 
and enslaved nations. Where now, Sir, is your su- 
premacy of Peter — your power of the keys — your 
power of absolution 1 Gone, like the morning cloud 
before the sun. Blessed be God, you have not yet 
turned your keys upon the common sense of the 
world ! 

Now, Sir, look for a moment at some of the absur- 
dities connected with your interpretations of the 
above texts. They are sufficiently startling. 

Your church is built upon Peter. " Thou art Pe- 
ter ; and upon this rock I build my church." So that 
your church is built upon the person of Peter ; ours 
is built upon the truth declared by Peter. Is, Sir, 
your rock as our rock ? 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 29 

Is your church built upon Peter ? Now turn from 
the 19th verse of the 18th of Matthew, which we 
have been considering, to the 22d and 23d verses of 
the same chapter. Peter is represented as rebuking 
his Lord, for the intimations he had given of his ap- 
proaching death. But the Master, turning upon 
Peter, thus addressed him : " Get thee behind me, 
Satan." So that, on your principles of interpreta- 
tion, your church must be built upon Satan ! 

What your priests, however profane or wicked, 
bind or loose upon earth, is bound or loosed in hea- 
ven. Now, here is a wicked man absolved by a 
priest ; does he go to heaven ? Here is a good man 
bound by a priest ; does he go to hell ? It must be 
so, on your principles. But you say he must be a 
sincere penitent, to gain any benefit from absolution. 
But if truly contrite, he can get to heaven without 
your absolution. 

Take another case : the man bound by the curate 
may be loosed by the parish priest. I take the fol- 
lowing illustration from a book before me : A peni- 
tent is enjoined to abstain from breakfast every 
morning, until his next confession. Christmas day 
intervenes, and he eats breakfast ; not thinking that 
that day could be included. On confessing this at 
his next confession, the curate drove him from his 
knee, declaring that he would have no more to do 
with a person that so trifled with his commands. On 
the borders of despair, lie went to the parish priest, 
telling him the whole story. " Do not mind it, my 
3* 



?3 

30 kirwan's letters 

child/ 5 said the kind-hearted father, " I will confess 
you." He did so, and absolved him. Here one 
priest binds sin on his soul, and another unbinds it. 
He dies in this state. What becomes of him ? Does 
the binding of the curate send him to hell, or does 
the loosing of the parish priest send him to heaven ? 
What becomes of him ? Is he suspended somewhere 
between heaven and hell ? 

But let us look at the satisfaction, which is a part of 
the sacrament of penance. " It consists in a faithful 
performance of the penance enjoined by the priest to 
whom we confess, whether as to restitution, or pray- 
ers, or alms-deeds, or fasting, to make some repara- 
tion, by these eminent good works, for the injury 
done to God." The penance enjoined by the priest 
is an " exchange which God makes of eternal pun- 
ishment which we have deserved by sin, into these 
small penitential works." I quote from Chaloner. 
And without satisfaction like this, the sinner cannot 
be saved. 

Now, Sir, will you tell me where this is taught in 
the Scriptures ? Where are we told that the blood 
of Christ is not sufficient to cleanse from all sin ? 
Where is authority given to ministers or priests to 
exchange " eternal punishment for small penitential 
works ? " Where does the Bible make a difference 
between ante-baptism and post-baptism sins ? 

Take another view of this thing. Penance means 
punishment. And " prayers, fasting, and alms," are 
enjoined by the priests as penance ; that is, as pun- 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 31 

ishment. So that your church makes prayers a pun- 
ishment to atone for sins ! What the Bible makes a 
privilege, you make a punishment ! The fasting 
which is beneficial, is that to which we are led by a 
sense of our sins : you enjoin it as a punishment ! 
And can alms-giving be a punishment, save to the 
worshipper of money ? What are the prayers or 
alms worth that are offered or given as a punishment ? 
The penance enjoined, and the austerities volun- 
tarily practised, are sometimes very singular, when 
considered in the light of making atonement for sins. 
Sometimes they consist in a set number of " Our Fa- 
thers " and " Hail Marys,"" counted on the beads or 
fingers, once or oftener a day, for so many days ; 
sometimes in fasting for a given time, on given days, 
from meat, eggs, &c; sometimes in a short pilgrim- 
age to St. John's well, or St. Patrick's ; sometimes, 
in Ireland, in going to the Seven Stations, and walk- 
ing on bare knees on the ground from one station to 
another. The penances enjoined by the priest are 
optional and multiform, and are modified according 
to his own prejudices and the dignity of the confess- 
ing penitent. Some of the voluntary austerities are 
curious enough. St. Dominick, when a child, would 
leave his cradle and lie upon the cold ground. I 
have seen many an urchin do this whose name is not 
yet, and is not likely to be, in the calendar. St. 
Francis used to call his body, Brother Ass, and whip 
it as badly as Balaam did his. St. Francis Loyola 
put on iron chains and a hair shirt, and flogged him- 



32 kirwan's letters 

self thrice a day. He deserved it all. St. Macarius 
went naked six months in a desert, suffering himself 
to be stung with flies, to atone for the sin of having 
killed a flea. Now, is it not a wicked burlesque upon 
the religion of God, to make ignorant people believe 
that in these and similar ways they secure an ex- 
change of eternal punishment ? Language supplies 
no words in which I can express to you my deep 
abhorrence of your sacrament of penance. 

Picture to yourself, Rev. Sir, this whole thing. 
There is a papist who has sinned grievously after 
baptism. How can he get to heaven ? Through the 
sacrament of penance. It is not sufficient that he 
repent of it ; no, he must confess to you ; then he 
must perform all the austerities that you enjoin ; then 
you absolve him ; and then, taking up the key that 
hangs by your girdle, you open to him the kingdom 
of heaven. So, then, it is in your power to say who 
shall and who shall not enter heaven. What blas- 
phemous assumption, when the divine Saviour tells 
me, and proclaims to all men, that " he that believ- 
eth on the Son hath life." Such assumptions are 
only worthy of the world's scorn. 

It is amazing how men, pretending to be religious, 
could contrive such a sacrament. It is amazing 
how rational men can believe it. But it is not amaz- 
ing how men believing it, and in the power with 
which it clothes you, should fawn at your feet as 
spaniels. It is no wonder that they pour their trea- 
sures into your coffers as water. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 33 

I believe in repentance, and hope I am not a stran- 
ger to it. I reject penance, as a priestly device to 
rob the people of their money and ruin their souls. 
Your church must lay aside this terrible sacrament 
before I return to her embrace. 

Before closing, let me ask you one question. Do 
you believe that none go to heaven from New- York 
but those to whom you and your priests, with your 
keys, open its gates ? It takes a hard heart and a 
soft head to believe this. I charge you with neither. 
With great respect, yours, 

Kirwan. 



34 kirwa.n's letters 



LETTER IV. 

Miracles — Milner's vindication — Many examples — Legends of the saints — 
A miracle of my own working — Why so few miracles since the Reforma- 
tion. 

My Dear Sir : — Another reason which prevents 
my return to the bosom of your church, I draw from 
the miraculous power claimed for your saints and 
clergy. I have felt disposed to say nothing on this 
subject, because of the extravagance of the claim 
itself; and because of my reluctance to state the 
absurdities which crowd the legends of your saints, 
and which your church has palmed, and yet palms 
on the world as miracles. I feel afraid that some 
candid papist will conclude that I have at last com- 
menced drawing on my imagination, and that the 
influence of my former reasoning with him will be 
weakened, by the utter, the intense absurdity of the 
miracles claimed for your saints, which I shall quote. 
But, pledging myself to fairness of statement, I will 
risk the consequences. 

Milner, as you know, devotes his 23d letter to vin- 
dicate the possession of this power by your church. 
He says, " the Catholic Church being always the 
beloved spouse of Christ, and continuing at all times 
to bring forth children of heroic sanctity, God fails 
no* in this, any more than in past ages, to illustrate 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 35 

her and them by unquestionable miracles : accord- 
ingly, in those processes which are constantly going 
on at the apostolical see, for the canonization of new 
saints, fresh miracles of a recent date continue to be 
proved, with the highest degree of evidence, as I can 
testify, from having perused, on the spot, the official 
nrinted account of some of them." And miraculous 

X 

power is claimed by all your writers, and is put forth 
as an evidence of yours being the true church ; and 
its absence from Protestant churches is considered 
by you a conclusive evidence against them. 

Milner not only claims this power for your church, 
but gives the following miracles that were perform- 
ed, to his own certain knowledge and belief: Twen- 
ty years before it happened, a nun predicted the fate 
of the king and queen of France, Louis XVI. and his 
consort, who were beheaded. In 1814, Joseph Lamb 
fell from a hay- rick and injured his spine. At Gars- 
wood, in England, is preserved the hand of one Ar- 
rowsmith, a priest, who was put to death at Lancas- 
ter, in the reign of Charles I. Lamb was signed on 
the back by this hand, with the sign of the cross, and 
was instantly healed! In 1809, Mary Wood, in 
striving to open a window, greatly injured her arm, 
so as almost to lose the use of it. She employed phy- 
sicians in vain. She finally had recourse to God, 
through St. Winfred, by a Novena — that is, prayers 
offered for nine days. She put a piece of moss from 
the Saint's well on her arm, and it was instantly re- 
stored ! Miss Winifred White, for some time dis- 



36 kirwan's letters 

eased with a curvature of the spine, was healed in 
an instant of time, by bathing in Holywell ! Mil- 
ner was not a witness of any of these miracles ; but 
they were proved true to his satisfaction ! Marvel- 
lous marvels ! 

Now, Sir, permit me to add to these miracles a 
few others from the Legends of the Saints, and no 
doubt equally well attested as those adduced by the 
learned Milner. As I have but few of these legends 
before me, I will quote from a recent review of the 
" Lives of the English Saints,' 7 now in a course of 
publication by those marvellous men, the Oxford di- 
vines, worthy of a place in the museum as Protest- 
ant curiosities. 

Somewhere near York, St. Augustine restored a 
blind man to his sight. St. Sulpicius, when a mere 
child, drove away, with the sign of the cross, two 
black demons who strove to scare him from his de- 
votions. St. Amatus miraculously stopped a lofty 
rock in the midst of its descent, with which a fiend 
sought to crush him in his cell. The father of St. 
Furceus contracted a clandestine marriage with a 
king's daughter. When the king found that she was 
likely to be a mother, he ordered her to be burned. 
She shed such a flood of tears as to put out the fire. 
Finding he could not burn, he banished her, and Fur- 
ceus was born in a foreign land. St. Mochua had to 
Call the stags from the forest to feed the multitude of 
his followers. He ordered their picked bones to be 
placed in their skins, and by an incantation over the 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 37 

skins and bones the stags were brought to life, jump- 
ed up, and ran back to the woods. St. Euchadius 
did the same with an old favorite crow, that he had 
to kill to provide meat for his guests. The piety of 
St. Fechin was so fervent, that when he bathed him- 
self in cold water the water became almost boiling 
hot. When St. Mochua wanted a fire in his cell, he 
called down a fire from heaven to light it. St. Goar 
of Treves, wanting a beam to hang up his cape, hung 
it on a sunbeam, where it remained until he took it 
down. St. Columbanus miraculously kept the grubs 
from his cabbage. When St. Mael was in want of 
fishes, he caught them on dry ground ; and St. Be- 
rach, when in want of fruit, made willows to bear 
apples. St. Fechin, when hungry, turned acorns 
into pork. In travelling he was stopped by a large 
tree which fell across his road : he commanded it to 
make way, and it instantly rose to its place. He 
built a mill on a hill top : being asked about the wa- 
ter, he went to a lake, a mile distant, into which he 
threw his stick ; the stick followed him on his re- 
turn, and the water after it, and the mill worked 
finely. Some thievish crows carried away some 
of the thatch of St. Cuthbert's hut to build their nests : 
at his rebuke they not only made an apology, but 
they brought him a piece of hog's lard to make 
amends for the injury. To this miracle Bede testi- 
fies. A raven plucked out the eye of an ass of St. 
James of Tarentaise : the saint made a hasty invo- 
cation, and the raven immediately returned and put 



38 KIRWAN'S LETTERS 

the eye in its place, without the least injury to the 
ass. St. Augustine was treated with insults in a cer- 
tain town in England — the fishmongers being espe- 
cially active in the bad work, hanging the tails of 
fish upon his garments and those of his followers. 
For generations afterwards the children of that place 
were born with tails. 

Your legends narrate miracles like these to any 
amount ; and they are now reproduced from the 
French and English press, for the purpose of encour- 
aging the faith of the pious. Wonderful as these 
are, they are by no means as wonderful as many 
others that the limits of a letter forbid me to quote. 

And some of the saints wrought a profusion of mi- 
racles. St. Fechin was a wonderful hand at them. 
St. Francis far surpassed the Saviour himself. 
Christ was transfigured but once — St. Francis more 
than twenty times. St. Francis and his disciples 
restored more than a thousand blind to sight — and 
more than a thousand lame to the use of their limbs 
— and more than a thousand dead to life ! 

Now, sir, whilst these things are gravely narrat- 
ed in your legends, and are read by your common 
people from your own books with the most pious be- 
lief in their truth, it is more than probable that this 
statement of them will be denounced as a bundle of 
Protestant lies ! When a boy I read a life of St. 
Francis Xavier, which narrated miracles wrought 
by him far surpassing any here cited. 

But why go to the miracles of the legends ; you 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 39 

are daily performing miracles which come up to any 
of them. Your daily changing of a wafer into the 
real body of Christ, and then eating him, beats any 
thing St. Fechin ever did. Your preparing an old 
sinner for heaven by rubbing him with olive oil, and 
then opening its gates to him by the keys which are 
only in your possession, far surpasses Fechin's turn- 
ing acorns to pork. We believe the swine them- 
selves are constantly doing this in our western woods. 
And in Ireland your priests are constantly perform- 
ing miraculous cures on men and cattle. Even 
your common people there work miracles. When 
a thunder storm is raging, they kindle a fire, and 
heat the tongs red hot. This preserves their cattle 
from the lightning. If they are killed notwithstand- 
ing, it is in chastisement for some sins not confessed, 
or some penances not rightly performed. Perhaps, 
Sir, it may astonish you when I tell you that I my- 
self, whilst yet in your faith, wrought two or three. 
Near my father's residence was* a wood in which a 
man was once killed. His ghost was regularly seen 
after dark. I never passed through that wood with- 
out crossing myself, and saying Hail Mary. And I 
assure you I never saw the ghost. After dusk, in 
the spring of the year, I was sent on an errand to a 
neighbor's house, which was separated from ours by 
two or three fields. As \ ran along I saw throi 
the magnifying twilight what was obviously an evil 
spirit. I slopped suddenly, and the sweat com- 
menced pouring. Naturally of a resolute spirit, I 



40 KIRWAn's LETTERS 

thus reasoned : if I run back he can catch me; if I 
go forward he can but catch me. So after saying 
my Hail Mary, and crossing myself, I went forward 
with a trembling step. As I advanced the horns of 
the fiend became perfectly obvious. Almost dead 
with fear I rushed forward and caught hold of them. 
And marvellous to narrate, those fiendish horns 
were instantly turned into the handles of a plough ! 
Now I submit it to you, sir, whether these miracles 
wrought by myself, are not as great as those wrought 
by St. Mochua, or St. Columbanus. And yet I fear 
my chance for canonization is exceedingly small. 

But considering the grave effects which have fol- 
lowed this claim of yours, it ought not, perhaps, to 
be treated lightly. And yet it is difficult to treat it 
otherwise. 

Now, sir, will you say that the miracles adduced 
by Milner are worthy of a moment's consideration ? 
Look at them again. A man hurt his back by fall- 
ing from a hay-rick, and is cured by a dead man's 
hand ! A girl in opening a window cut her arm, 
and felt difficulty in using it ; she puts on a piece 
of moss and her arm gets well. Another girl has a 
diseased spine ; she is cured by bathing in Holy- 
well. Are these proofs to any mind that your church 
possesses miraculous power 1 If these are not, can 
the miracles selected from the legends of the middle 
ages be ? 

Can you, for a moment, place any of your mira- 
cles on an equality with those wrought by the Sa- 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 41 

viour and his apostles ? Milner does it, sad I am to 
say, but will you, John Hughes, do it, and in the 
city of New-York ? What ! place these marvels 
of lying legends, the productions of infamous monks 
of the dark ages, who made saints of necromancers, 
and miracles of witch stories, Gn the same founda- 
tion as the miracles of Christ ! Will you gravely 
tell us, that i^ we deny the one we must deny the 
other ? If I deny that the fervor of the piety of St. 
Fechin almost made the cold water to boil in which 
he bathed, must I also deny that Christ raised Laza- 
rus from the grave ? Will you, claiming to be a 
bishop in the church of God, say that these miracles 
are sustained by evidence equally conclusive as 
those of the Scriptures ? This I will only believe 
when you say so. 

Compare the object of scriptural and popish mira- 
cles. The one are divine attestations to the truth ; 
the other, to yours being the true church. How 
different these objects! And they are no more dif- 
ferent than the miracles. And in point of force and 
evidence, Milner 7 s miracles cannot be compared to 
those of Irving, or of our own Mormons. 

If your church possesses miraculous power, why 
so sparing of its use since the Reformation ? If the} 7 " 
arc not all impostures, why so many in Ireland, 
whilst there are none in Scotland ; why so many 
in France and Spain, and so few in New-York ? 
Come out in the open view of some intelligent Prot- 
estants, and cure a man that was born blind, or raise 
4* 



42 KIR WAN 7 S LETTERS 

one from the grave that lay there until putrefaction 
commenced, and, then, we will ask you to excuse 
the utter scorn with which, until then, we must treat 
your impostures. My dear Sir, the world will not 
forget the history of Hohenlohe, the modern St. 
Fechin. He was forbidden to work his miracles 
save in the presence of some commissioners and 
physicians ; he appealed to the pope. The holy 
father enjoined him to conform. From that hour 
his miracles have ceased. 

" Ghosts prudently withdraw at peep of day." 

Miracles were vouchsafed by God divinely to at- 
test the truth of the Gospel. This power was vouch- 
safed to the Apostles, and was continued in the 
church until the truth of the Gospel was established. 
Then it was withdrawn. Since the rise of popery 
there has been no miracle wrought. The nearest 
approach to one, that I now remember, for fourteen 
hundred years, is the fact that your church could 
gain such a general credence for its absurdities, and 
make men believe that she could work miracles. 

You must give up your lying legends and your 
claim to miraculous power, before I can return to 
your fold. I feel as did our fellow-countryman with 
the bad asthma, who exclaimed, " If once I can get 
this troublesome breath out of my body, Til take 
good care it shall never get in again." 

With great respect, yours, 

KrRWANo 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 43 



LETTER V. 

Marks of the Papal being the true Church considered. Unity— Sanctity — 
Catholicity — Apostolicity — Infallibility. 

Rev. and dear Sir, — In the present letter, I wish 
to place before you another of my reasons for not 
returning to the church of my fathers, drawn from 
the exclusive claims of your church — claims which, 
if well-founded, consign to eternal damnation all 
who refuse to believe its doctrines, or to submit to 
its authority. That these claims are put forth, you 
will not deny. You glory in them. Milner and 
Butler assert them, and seek to sustain them by 
Scripture and reason. " The Poor Man's Cate- 
chism," from which I like to quote, because it is the 
channel through which you seek to impress the 
common mind, says, " those who submit not to the 
doctrine and authority of the Holy Catholic Church, 
are all out of her communion ; as pagans, infidels, 
Turks, Jews, heretics and schismatics." And by 
the Holy Catholic Church is meant, that church 
whose head is the pope. This is sufficiently expli- 
cit. So that in your estimation, and in that of your 
church, the Protestant churches around you are no 
better than Jewish synagogues, or pagan templef ; 
the people that worship in them, are no better than 



47 

44 Kill WAN 'S LETTERS 

Turks or pagans ; and such men as the late excel- 
lent Milnor, as Spring, Knox, Bangs, Williams, 
Wainright, Skinner, your cotemporaries, and equals, 
and fellow citizens, are no better than Hume, Vol- 
taire, Gibbon ; or at least, than Jewish Rabbies, 
Turkish Mufties, or Hindoo Priests, who mingle 
their blood with their sacrifices. That such is } r our 
belief is apparent in your conduct. You and your 
priests so treat them. The belief of your people is, 
that all beyond the pale of your church are devoted 
to destruction. I remember the day when I had no 
more doubt of it than of my own existence. If there 
are papists who believe otherwise, and who exercise 
a charitable hope as to the salvation of Protestants, 
as I believe there are many, so far forth they are 
not papists. 

The process by which you reach this terrible dog- 
ma is a very short one. There is no salvation out 
of the true church — the Roman Catholic is the true 
church — therefore, there is no salvation out of 
the Roman Catholic Church. Here is your logical 
and theological guillotine, by which you sever the 
hopes which bind millions of your race to God and 
heaven ; who serve the one, and deserve the other, 
at least, as well as you do. And, then, the marks 
of yours being the true church, you parade before 
us with as much confidence as if they were true ; 
and with as much assurance as if they were never, 
instead of being a thousand times, refuted. Permit 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 45 

me, in the briefest manner, to consider each of these 
marks. They are Unity, Sanctity, Catholicity, 
Apostolicity, and Infallibility. 

Your first mark is Unity. Has your church this 
mark ? In what one thing are you united ? Not in 
the head of the church. You have a pope ; — some 
say, others deny, that he is the head. One goes for 
the pope, — another for a general council, — a third 
for both united. Is this unity ? But if we admit 
your unity, what follows ? Does the agreement of 
numbers in maintaining error and superstition, prove 
that in which they are united true ? Then Pagan- 
ism, and Mahometanism, and Budhism, may be 
proved divine. These systems have more followers 
than you can boast. 

You are not agreed as to the authoritative coun- 
cils of your church. You are yet agitated by con- 
troversies on the subject. Nor are you agreed in 
the doctrines of the Bible. Never were Arminians 
and Calvinists more widely separated on these mat- 
ters than you are. Look at the fierce contentions 
of your Jansenists and Jesuits, unsettled to the pre- 
sent hour. If united, what meant the fierce contro- 
versies of your Scotists and Thomists — of your Can- 
onists and Schoolmen — of your Nominalists and 
Realists. But I cannot weary you or my readers 
on this matter. You talk about the differences 
among Protestants ; — they are not to be compared to 
those among papists. You put into my hand Bos- 
suet's " Variations of Protestants ;" I put into yours, 



>/ 



46 kirwan's letters 

" Edgar's Variations of Popery." Where Protest- 
ants differ in one point, papists differ in five, — where 
they differ in minor matters, you differ in the veriest 
essentials. Protestants agree as to the Head of the 
church, Christ ; — and as to the rule of the church, 
the Bihle. You differ as to both. 

True, you have an apparent external unity. But 
how have you gotten it ? What is it worth ? You 
set up monstrous claims, and all who do not admit 
them you cast off. Milner's " Apostolical Tree," 
shows how the work of lopping off has progressed. 
You have laid the axe upon every green and fruit- 
ful branch ; and the old stump and withered branch- 
es remain, a unity ! And what is your unity 
worth ? If 1 return to your church, " I must be- 
lieve whatever the Holy Catholic Church believes 
and teaches." This I must do without knowing, 
and without ever being able to know, all that 
she believes and teaches. I must put myself 
into your hands, and give you power to think for 
me, and to believe for me ; and then I must believe, 
and swear to, what you thus think and believe for 
me, at the peril of being cut off and cast into the 
fire. Sir, this is horrible slavery. Do you think 
men will long submit to it ? 

Your boasted unity is a fable — your apparent 
unity, is slavery. You present a united front in 
your opposition to Protestants ; but never were the 
bowels of the victim of the Asiatic cholera more ter- 
ribly convulsed, than is the bosom of your church 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 47 

by distracting controversies. Your priests and 
bishops and people may fight as they may, but they 
are a unity as long as they remain within the same 
organization. If one of them secedes, if you can- 
not kill him, you damn him, for the sake of unity. 
Your next mark is Sanctity, I admit that sanc- 
tity, or holiness, is a mark of a true disciple, and of 
a true cmarch. The people and church of Christ, 
should be holy in all manner of conversation 
Sanctity you claim for your church as one of its dis 
tinguishing marks. But in what is it manifested ? 
You reply, first, in her doctrines. But what doc 
trine of the Bible has not your church corrupted ' 
What institution has it not perverted ? And so con 
scious is your church of this, that it withholds the 
unadulterated word from the people. You reply, 
again, in the means of holiness. By these you mean 
the sacraments. But you have grievously perverted 
the only two sacraments instituted by Christ ; and 
you have added to them five which have no divine 
authority, and whose only object is to give you pow- 
er, and to obtain for you " the alms and the suffrages 
of the faithful." You reply again, in her fruits of 
holiness. By these you mean the virtues practised 
by papists. I could not, for a moment, deny the 
true piety of many papists, the exalted piety of 
some ; but will you, Sir, assert that the piety and 
virtues of your people are so much more resplen- 
dent than those of any, or all other people, as to 
mark yours as the true church ? If so, it seems to 



48 KIR WAN'S LETTERS 

me that you would assert that Jupiter surpasses the 
moon, and the moon the sun, in brightness. The 
evidences to the contrary are no more apparent in 
the one case than in the other. Look at the mass 
of your clergy in the sunniest days of your church, 
and what were their fruits of holiness ? Your own 
historians being witnesses, what were the fruits of 
your nunneries, your monasteries, your monks, and 
your other orders, when there were no Protestants 
to unveil their enormities ? What are now the fruits 
of your religion in the states of South America ? 
Have you seen the testimony of Mr. Thompson, our 
late minister to Mexico, as to the papal clergy of 
that country ? As to the fruits of holiness, compare 
Spain, Italy, with Scotland or New England. 

But I will not proceed with the comparison farther 
than to ask you to compare the Protestant ministry 
of New-York with the papal — the congregation of 
St. Patrick's with any large and wealthy Protestant 
congregation in the city, as to the fruits of holiness, 
and you yourself will be astonished at the difference. 
The general rule is, that purely papal countries are 
those most debased and immoral, and purely Prot- 
estant countries are those most enlightened, and most 
abounding in every good work. The tenth century, 
the noonday of popery, was the midnight of our 
race. Nor does the history of the world present 
such evidences of unbridled, overgrown depravity, 
as does the history of your church. 

Your next mark is Catholicity. You claim this 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 49 

title for your church as to time, persons, and places. 
As to time, your church rose upon the ruins of that 
founded by Christ and his apostles, and centuries 
after their death. The peculiar doctrines and cere- 
monies of popery are derived from the heathen, and 
were engrafted on Christianity. Instead of your 
church, as you claim, being identical with that of 
Christ and his apostles, there is not an essential 
particular, in which it is not in opposition to it. I 
admit, as to persons, that yours is a very numerous 
church ; but it never formed a third part of Chris- 
tendom. Is the standard of truth the numbers that 
profess it ? Then Christianity was a lie whilst in 
the minority ; — -and so it is a lie yet, because, taking 
our whole race together, vastly in the minority. 
So I admit, as to places, that popery is very widely 
diffused. But is not Protestantism also ? Where 
has a papist gained foothold where there is not a 
Protestant ? So that your claim to this mark is as 
absurd as it is groundless. Your catholicity is a 
vain and empty boast. There is a Catholic Church, 
but it is not yours. 

Your next mark is ApostolicUy — that is, a regular 
succession from the Apostles in the chair of St. Pe- 
ter. Now, Sir, this claim is put forth by other 
churches as strongly as yours, and on foundations 
even stronger than yours. I now refer to the Ar- 
menian, Nestorian, and Syriac churches, which 
were founded before the Gospel was preached at 
Rome. It is beyond the power of man to establish 
5 



50 kirwan's letters 

this claim. If established, must we receive as a 
true minister every man coming to us in the regular 
line, whatever be his doctrines or morals ? What 
is the test of apostolicity ? Is it succession, or doc- 
trines ? Most obviously doctrines. " If there come 
any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him 
not into your house, neither bid him God speed." 
Standing upon this one text, I would turn you away 
from my door, even had I seen the hands of all the 
apostles upon your head, unless you preached their 
doctrines. Why, the strong language of Paul would 
even warrant me to curse you, coming to me with 
your claim of succession, without apostolical doctnne. 
Read it : — " But though we, or an angel from hea- 
ven, preach any other Gospel unto you, than that 
we have preached, let him be accursed." Sir, if I 
try your succession by your doctrine, the true test of 
succession, I could soon place you among those who 
said they were apostles and were not. From what 
Apostle, save Judas, many are descended, who are 
crying out, Apostolical succession, apostolical suc- 
cession ! I cannot conceive. 

Your next mark is Infallibility. Under all the 
circumstances of the case, this claim is truly ludi- 
crous. Where is the seat of infallibility ? Some 
say it resides in the pope. But how is he made in- 
fallible ? The pope dies ; an election for a new one 
is ordered. He is to be elected from the cardinals — 
all fallible men, if no worse. After endless intrigue, 
and boundless corruption, and numerous ballotings, 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 51 

the lot falls upon a fallible cardinal. Will you tell 
me how such an election makes him infallible ? But 
others say, that the pope is not infallible, and that 
he may be deposed for heresy. So that here you 
are divided. 

Some say the seat of infallibility is a general 
council. But how is this? Here are three hun- 
dred fallible men assembled in general council ; 
how do they become infallible ? Will you tell me 
the process ? How do finites make an infinite ? 
Heap them up as you may, are they not a heap of 
finites 1 And crowd together as many fallible men 
as you may, are they any thing else than a crowd 
of fallibles ? But by what chemical or alchemical 
process can you deduce the infallible from the fal- 
lible ? 

Nor is this the worst. We find one general 
council denouncing another— the church of one 
age contradicting the church of another. The 
seat of infallibility is thus undetermined by you ; 
whilst the proofs of your church's fallibility fill 
the world. It is infallibly certain that your church 
is fallible. 

Thus is your church, utterly destitute of every 
mark of being the true church, which you claim for 
it. Its unity is discord, or slavery — its sanctity is 
corruption — its catholicity is assumption — its aposto- 
licity and infallibility each a lie. Could I speak of 
your church in the masculine and feminine gender, 
as do some of your writers, instead of admitting her 



52 kirwan's letters 

to be the one, holy, catholic, apostolical, and infalli- 
ble church, I would call her the mother of harlots, 
and the father of lies ; the man of sin fully revealed, 
with " powers, and signs, and lying wonders." 

And yet, whilst common sense rejects your claims, 
and common reason disproves them, and the Bible 
denies them, unless in the case of invincible igno- 
rance, you cut off all beyond your pale from all 
communion with God — from all hope of heaven ! I 
regard this as simply wicked. To gain your point, 
you rob the Father of us all of his goodness ; man 
you drive to despair, and you convert God into a 
tyrant. If a boat were as rotten as I believe your 
church to be, I would not trust it to carry me 
across the North river. And yet it claims the entire 
monopoly of carrying to heaven all the souls that 
ever enter it, and for no reason, human or divine, 
that I can see, unless it be for the freight. 

My Bible tells me, Sir, that whosoever believeth 
in the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. The sin- 
cere believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, whether in 
your church or other churches, or in no church, 
form a part of that church which Christ will present 
to the Father, without spot or wrinkle or any such 
thing. By setting up its claim to be the only true 
church — by den} ing salvation to all but your own 
members, with the exception of the invincibly igno- 
rant, you deny this doctrine of the Bible and of my 
faith — you lay down a principle, unsustained by 
sense or Scripture, from which the mind of the world 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 53 

revolts, and from which my soul turns away, as from 
a thing the most offensive. Your exclusive claims 
must be proved, or abandoned, from their Alpha to 
their Omega, before I can return to your church. 
With great respect, yours, 

Kirwan. 



5* 



54 KIRWAN~'"s LETTERS 



LETTER VI. 

Relics— Relies the parent of miracles — The importance of relics — Specimens 
of relics — The aouses of relics — Indulgence — To whom and by whom 
granted — Their fearful effects. 

Rev. and Dear Sir : — Permit me to ask your 
kind attention, in the present letter, to two more ob- 
jections which prevent my return to your church, 
drawn from your use of relics and indulgences. The 
importance which you attach to these things, and the 
evils which flow from them, demand a letter for the 
due consideration of each ; but I will consider them 
both in one, and, as I trust, without weakening the 
force of my objections. 

" Relics are the dead bodies or bones of saints, 
and whatever belonged to them in their mortal life." 
The clause I place in italics enables you to multiply 
them indefinitely. These relics are honored with 
an inferior and relative, but not with divine honor. 
And they are honored, 1st, because they were the 
temples of God ; 2dly, because they are to be raised 
from the dead ; 3dly, because of their miraculous 
power ; 4thly, because they encourage the faithful 
to imitate their virtues, This is Challoner's account 
of them, with which that of Milner agrees. 

This doctrine of relics is intimately connected 
with that of miracles — it flows from it. The man 
who performed miracles, when living, should be, after 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 55 

death, highly honored ; his bones may perform them 
after death ; and, as in many cases they do perform 
them, their relics should be honored with an infe- 
rior and relative, but not with a divine honor. Here 
is the link which connects your doctrine of relics 
with your miracles. 

Relics are matters of immense importance to 
Rome. They are to your churches what the ark of 
the covenant, and the pot of manna, and Aaron's 
rod that budded, were to the Jewish temple. Hence 
the prodigious efforts of past ages to obtain relics, 
and the enormous prices paid for them, in order to 
place them in churches, and the sleepless vigilance 
with which they have been guarded, lest they should 
be stolen for the adorning of new churches by their 
virtues. They have been more than mines of wealth 
to Holy Mother, as they have brought her the gold 
and the silver, without the trouble of mining, smelt- 
ing, or coining it. 

If a bone or a relic of a saint could be secured for 
a new church, the church was called by his name, 
and placed under his guardianship. This is the ori- 
gin of calling churches after the names of saints. 
And thus nations were placed under the guardian- 
ship of saints — as Ireland under that of St. Patrick — 
Scotland under that of St. Andrew — England under 
that of St. George. So also cities were placed un- 
der the care of saints, and their relics wore esteem- 
ed as imparting far greater security against assault 
than cannon, walls, or bulwarks. Constantino, you 



56 

know, defended the town of Nisibis with the dead 
body of St. James ; and when the Emperor Leo de- 
sired to secure the relics of Simon the Stylite from 
Antioch, for the purposes of defence, the prudent 
citizens replied, " Our city has no walls, and we 
have brought here the holy body of Simon, that it 
might serve us in the stead of walls and bulwarks." 
And so individuals are placed under a guardian 
saint, or they select one for themselves. I remem- 
ber, when a boy, I had one myself; but his name I 
am utterly unable to recall. I have no doubt but 
that you will say he took bad care of me. 

There is, I learn, an authentic list of the relics, 
deemed true, possessed and published by your 
church. I have never seen it. It must be a very 
curious book. In the absence of your catalogue, I 
select a few of the relics greatly venerated by pa- 
pists, from books of authority that lie before me. 
They are almost as amusing as your miracles. I 
will omit those too offensive to be named, out of re- 
spect for you, my readers, and myself. 

The arms, legs, fingers, toes of the saints are 
greatly multiplied. There are eight arms of St. 
Matthew, three of St. John, and almost any number 
of St. Thomas a-Becket. There are in the Church 
of Later an, the ark made by Moses in the wilder- 
ness, the rod of Moses, and the table on which the 
last supper was instituted by the Saviour. The ta- 
ble is entirely at Rome ; but there are many pieces 
of it in other places. On the altar of the Lateran 



/L 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 57 

are the heads of Peter and Paul entire ; but there 
are pieces of them in Bilboa, greatly honored by the 
monks. St. Peter's Church is blessed with the cross 
of the penitent thief; with the lantern of Judas; 
with the dice used by the soldiers in casting lots for 
the Saviour's garments ; with the tail of Balaam's 
ass ; and with the axe, saw, and hammer of St. Jo- 
seph. Different churches are enriched with pieces 
of the wood of the cross ; and were the pieces all 
brought together, they would make a hundred cross- 
es. In one church is some of the manna in the wil- 
derness; in another some blossoms from Aaron's 
rod ; in another an arm of St. Simon ; in another 
the picture of the Virgin, painted by Luke — in an- 
other one of her combs ; in another the combs of the 
apostles, but little used ; in another a part of the 
body of St. Lazarus, that smells ; in another a part 
of the Gospel of Mark, in his own handwriting ; in 
another a finger of St. Ann, the Virgin's sister ; in 
another St. Patrick's stick, with which he drove 
venomous reptiles from Ireland ; in another some of 
St. Joseph's breath, caught by an angel in a vial ; 
in another a piece of the rope with which Judas hung 
himself; in another some of the Virgin's hair — in 
another some of her milk. And the monks once 
showed among their relics the spear and shield with 
which Michael encountered the dragon of Revela- 
tion ; and some relic-monger had a feather from the 
wing of the Holy Spirit, when taking the form of a 
dove he abode upon Christ at his baptism ! On the 



/// 



58 KIR WAN'S LETTERS 

miracles wrought by the relics of the saints I have 
already sufficiently dwelt. They are various, and 
very numerous. 

I will not, I cannot, here dwell upon the awful 
abuses of your doctrine of relics; on the robbery of 
all kinds of graves in Palestine, and the hawking of 
pilfered bones all over Europe ; on the selling of 
old wood, sufficient to warm a small town through 
the winter, as pieces of the cross ; on the selling of 
hands and feet of particular saints, until the proof is 
positive that some of the favored ones had as many 
hands as Briareus, and as many feet as the crawling 
worm we call the centipede. I turn from the abuse 
to the doctrine. 

Now, Sir, where is the origin of your doctrine of 
relics ? Can you find a trace of it in the New Tes- 
tament ? Will you, for a moment, compare the sham 
miracles wrought at the tombs of some of your saints 
with that wrought by the bones of a prophet of Is- 
rael ? Will you dare to say that the curing of a 
sore throat, by a dead man's hand, is to be placed on 
the same ground with the miraculous cures of the 
apostles ? I venerate the names, I would even de- 
corate the tombs of the good ; but what virtue is 
there in a bone from the body of Paul or Peter ? or 
in a slip of wood from the cross ? or in a strand 
from the rope with which Judas hung himself? or in 
some hairs from the tail of the beast which Balaam 
whipped. 

If relics ever performed miracles, why do they 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 5D 

not perform some now ? Is the virtue of all your 
old bones exhausted ? Where is the holy coat of 
Treves ? Where now are the pilgrims to the bones 
of Becket ? Where is your shop in New-York for 
the sale of holy teeth, and holy fingers, and holy 
bones, taken from the graves of the saints ? Sir, the 
whole matter is one of the vilest impositions ever 
practised upon the credulity of man. I do not charge 
you with believing a word of it. I could almost as 
soon believe in the virtue of the paring of the toe- 
nails of some of your saints, as admit that a man of 
your high sense can believe in these things. 

But I must hasten to a brief consideration of your 
doctrine of indulgence . And how shall I character- 
ize it ? 

Your church teaches that sins of a certain char- 
acter deserve temporal and eternal punishment. 
Penance secures the remission of the latter ; indul- 
gence releases from the former. So that indulgences 
secure a release from the debt of temporal punish- 
ment. 

No person but a lineal descendant of St. Peter can 
grant an indulgence. And that all such have the 
power of granting them, is clearly proved, by the 
fact that the Saviour gave the keys to Peter, mid told 
him that whatsoever he bound or loosed on earth 
should be bound or loosed in heaven. 

Indulgences can be only granted to those who 
have, by penance, secured the remission of eternal 
punishment ; and they can be granted even to such 



60 kirwan's letters 

only for a good cause or motive. Unless the cause 
or motive is a good one, heaven does not loose what 
the bishop looses. The causes or motives deemed 
good are, "the doing of great works for the glory of 
God and the public benefit of the church, such as the 
propagation of the catholic faith, building churches, 
alms, &c.' J And the way in which the bishop se- 
cures the remission of the temporal punishment of 
the indulged one, — he draws upon the satisfaction of 
Christ and his saints, called " the treasure of the 
church," and offers the draft to God, as an equiva- 
lent for the punishment due to the individual ! I do 
think that some heated controversialists have distort- 
ed this doctrine of your church ; but you will not 
say that this is a distortion of it. It is taken, almost 
literally, from Challoner and Milner. 

The illustration of Milner, of the working of the 
thing, is a curiosity in its way. It is drawn from 
2 Sam., 12th chapter. David, by the murder of 
Uriah, and by adultery with his wife, incurred both 
eternal and temporal punishment. He confessed to 
Nathan and did penance, and eternal punishment 
was remitted. The temporal yet remained, and he 
suffered it all. And why? There was no priest 
or bishop to grant him indulgence ! 

Such, Sir, is your doctrine of indulgence. Per- 
mit me to give you my thoughts in reference to it. 

There is not a shadow of authority for it in the 
Scriptures. The church has authority to receive 
those she deems worthy of membership, and to cast 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 6] 

out offenders. And when offenders, cast out from 
her bosom, have given due evidence of repentance, 
she has the power of again receiving them ; she is 
bound to do so. Upon this simple scriptural posi- 
tion your church has erected the sacrament of pen- 
ance, and the doctrine of indulgence ! 

Nor have you a shadow of authority for prescrib- 
ing a meritorious satisfaction to God, in lieu of the 
penalty annexed to his law, and pronounced against 
sin. I have already examined and exploded your 
claims as to the power of the keys, and as to binding 
and loosing. So unreasonable, I may say, so foolish 
are they, that their assertion only exposes you to 
ridicule. Let us suppose that David were now king 
of the State of New- York, with the sins of the mat- 
ter of Uriah fresh upon him : could you go to him 
and say, " May it please your majesty, I John 
Hughes, by the power of binding and loosing trans- 
ferred to me by Peter, will grant you indulgence 
from the temporal punishment due to your sins ; and 
that child born to you by the wife of Uriah shall live, 
by virtue of my indulgence, if you only build for me 
a splendid cruciform church, and endow it with re- 
gal magnificence ? " Should you do this, would not 
your conduct be branded, not only as revoltingly ar- 
rogant, but as blasphemous ? And is not this the 
way that many of your churches were built and 
endowed ? 

But you now lower your tone, and say, that indul- 
gences only remit the temporal punishment inflicted 
6 



62 KIRWAN'S LETTERS 

by the church. But how does this mend the matter ? 
By your power of binding or loosing, you can send 
a man to hell or to heaven ; you can inflict any pun- 
ishment you see fit ; and you can demand of the pen* 
itent, for indulgence, any " good works 5) you see 
fit. Here, sir, is the key which unlocks a chamber 
in your church filled with rottenness and putrefac- 
tion, more foul and filthy than the world has ever 
seen. Need I revert to the traffic in indulgences so 
zealously promoted by your popes in past days ? 
Need I point you to their wholesale manufacture by 
your popes — to their selling them by wholesale to 
tribes of vagabond monks, who hawked them all over 
Europe at prices to suit purchasers 1 The pope drove 
as good a bargain as he could with the monks, and 
the monks with the people. For the indulgence 
which a poor peasant could purchase for a few pen- 
nies, a prince must pay pounds. The common sense 
of the world was insulted ; the yoke of Rome became 
too heavy for the nations longer to bear ; a poor 
monk discovered a copy of the Bible, and its truths 
filled his mind and his soul ; strong in the Lord, he 
went out from his dark cell with the lamp of life in 
his hand; the Reformation follows. And for the 
exposure of her frauds and wickedness, your church 
has sent that poor monk to a place where the effi- 
cacy of seven sacraments— of all masses — of all in- 
diligences — can never reach him. 

But you will say all this was the abuse of the 
thing. My dear Sir, your doctrines of relics and in- 



/6 

TO BISHOP HUGHES. 63 

dulgences have no use — they are all abuse. Guard 
them as you may in your Catechisms and books, 
practically they are all abuse. Millions have prayed 
at the tombs of your saints, who never offered an in- 
telligent prayer to God through his Son. Millions 
have worshipped your relics, who never worshipped 
God in spirit and in truth. And millions have sought 
deliverance from sin by your penances, and extreme 
unctions, and indulgences, who never sought it 
through the blood of Jesus Christ. And at this hour 
many of your churches in Rome are nothing but spi- 
ritual shops for the sale of indulgences. 

The frauds which your church has practised on 
the world, by her relics and indulgences are enor- 
mous. If practised by the merchants of New- York, 
in their commercial transactions, they would send 
every man of them to State Prison. 

By your doctrine of relics you lead the people into 
idolatry on the one hand — by your doctrine of indul- 
gence you give them a license to commit sin on the 
other. At least this is their practical effect. It is 
said of the holy Sturme, the disciple of St. Winfrid, 
that in passing a horde of unconverted Germans, as 
they were bathing in a stream, lie was so overpow- 
ered by the intolerable stench of sin that arose from 
them, he nearly fainted away. Similar is the effect 
of the odor of your relics and indulgences upon me. 
Your church must abandon them utterly before I 
can return to her communion. 

With great respect, yours, 

KlRWAN. 



V 



64 ktrwan's letters 



LETTER VII. 

Unmeaningness of Romish Doctrines and Ceremonies . — Baptism — The 
Mass — Penance — Extreme Unction — Holy Water — Prayers to the Saints 
— Withholding the Scriptures. 

Rev. and dear Sir : — I ask your attention in the 
present letter, to the consideration of another objec- 
tion, which, mountain-like, opposes my return to 
your church, drawn from the utter unmeaningness 
of your peculiar doctrines and ceremonies. If I coin 
a new word to express my meaning, surely you will 
forgive me, a bishop in a church which has coined 
doctrines, and sacraments, and ceremonies, without 
meaning, and without end. 

When I look into the New Testament, every thing 
there is plain and simple. True, there are some 
doctrines there taught, which are above my entire 
comprehension ; but yet they are plainly taught. 
Having settled the divine authority of the Scriptures, 
I never question what they plainly teach. Its most 
mysterious truths are not opposed to my reason ; 
they are only above it. When I look at the wor- 
ship, and ceremonies there enjoined, they all seem 
to me perfectly simple and expressive. And so are 
the worship and ceremonies of almost all the Prot- 
estant churches with which I am acquainted. So 
far as they deviate from simplicity and expressive- 
ness, do they deviate from the apostolical model. 



// 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 65 

But when I turn to your church — the church of my 
fathers, — every thing peculiar to it wears a contraiy 
aspect, and to my mind seems utterly unmeaning, 
and frequently absurd. Permit me to illustrate what 
I mean. And even should I occupy this letter with 
my illustrations, my only excuse to you and my read- 
ers is, the importance of the subject. 

I begin with your sacrament of Baptism. This 
we all admit to be a sacrament ; but I have now to 
do with the power and significancy which you give 
it, and the ceremonies you connect with it. 

The effects of baptism when duly administered, as 
stated by Challoner, are these : — It washes away 
original sin — it remits all actual sin — it infuses the 
habit of divine grace into the soul — it gives a right 
and title to heaven — it makes us children and mem- 
bers of the church. Now, Sir, I have no sense by 
which I can perceive how the application of water 
by a priest, or a minister, or a laic, or a midwife, 
can accomplish all this, whilst testimony to the con- 
trary addresses itself to all my senses. Christ died 
for the sins of all that believe in him — it is faith in 
Christ that secures the washing away of original and 
actual sin — and faith is the exercise of a heart re- 
newed by the Holy Ghost. Being justified by faith, 
we have peace with God and a title to heaven. All 
this I can understand; but how your dipping three 
times in water can do all this, I see not. What the 
Bible attributes to the I Inly Spirit, and to the exercise 
of true faith, you claim for the sacrament of baptism ! 
6* 



66 kirwan's letters 

If your doctrine of baptismal regeneration is true, 
what a singular commentary we have of it in the 
lives of your people ! What singular manifestations 
of the habits of divine grace which your baptism in- 
fuses into the soul, you see daily among your peo- 
ple ! I only wonder that the facts in the case have 
not long since exploded your doctrine, and led you 
back to the simplicity of the sacrament as taught in 
the Bible ! The apostles administered baptism to 
those who confessed faith in Jesus Christ ; and 
through this sacrament we obtain a place and a 
name in the visible church. This all men can un- 
derstand ; but how you, or any mortal man, by the 
application of water in any or all ways, can wash 
away the original and actual sins of the sinner, — 
infuse into his soul the habits of grace, and give him 
a title to heaven, I cannot comprehend. If your 
baptism could only do this, it would wonderfully 
mend the habits of many of your people, and save 
some of the criminal courts of New-York a world 
of trouble ! 

And the power you claim for it is no more un- 
meaning than the ceremonies you connect with it. 
This sacrament, ordinarily, must be administered in 
churches with fonts, whose water must be blessed 
" on the vigils of Easter and Whitsunday." There 
must be godfathers and godmothers. The priest 
blows in the face of the subject of baptism thrice, to 
drive Satan out of him ! Then blessed salt is put 
in his mouth ! Then exorcism is performed to drive 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 67 

the devil out of him ! This is all done in the porch 
of the church. Then he is introduced into the 
church, where prayers are said. Then the priest 
puts his spittle on his ears and nose. Then he is 
anointed with holy oil, " blessed on Maunday-Thurs- 
day." And then he is baptized. Then he is 
anointed on the top of the head with holy chrism. 
Then a white linen cloth is placed on his head. 
Then a lighted candle is put in his hand ! Then 
the ceremony is ended, and the person is dismissed, 
his sins all washed away — the habits of grace in- 
fused into his soul, and his title to heaven in his 
pocket ! 

Now, sir, excite my wits as I may, I cannot un- 
derstand all this. It is addressed to my ignorance. 

The whole ceremony of your Mass is yet more 
unmeaning to me. Often as I have witnessed it, I 
never gleaned one intelligent idea from it — nor does 
one out of one million of your people. I have just 
read through the laboured explanation of it by Bishop 
England ; and it is truly painful to see so noble a 
mind expending its powers in the vain attempt to 
give meaning to every thread of such a gossamer 
web ; — to give sense and significance to what is so 
utterly nonsensical. 

i u In the Mass," says Dr. England, "Christ is the 
victim ; he is produced by the consecration, which, 
by the power of God, and the institution of the Re- 
deemer, and the act of the priest, place the body and 
blood of Christ, under the appearance of bread and 



68 kirwan's letters 

wine, upon the altar ; then the priest makes an ab- 
lation of this Victim to the Eternal Father on behalf 
of the people, and the victim undergoes a destructive 
change, showing forth the death of the Redeemer, 
and making commemoration thereof, by the exhibi- 
tion of the apparent separation of the body from the 
blood ; the former being under the appearance of 
bread, and the latter under the appearance of wine, 
and by the consumption of both by the priest." This 
is, on the whole, the clearest account of the mass that 
I have ever seen from the pen of a priest ; and yet what 
mind can understand it 1 Sir, do you understand 
it ? Christ produced from some bread and wine 
by a priest — this produced Christ is laid upon the 
altar by the priest — an oblation of this produced 
Christ is made to the Eternal Father by the priest — 
the produced Christ undergoes a destructive change 
in the act of oblation— this oblation of the produced 
Christ is offered for the people — and then this pro- 
duced, offered Christ, and after he has undergone a 
destructive change, is eaten by the priest ! Sir, all 
this is as umeaning to me as the leaves which the 
fabled sybil scattered on the winds. And this un- 
meaning Mass, a greater mass of absurdity than ever 
heathen ingenuity or depravity invented, is the chief 
source of edification to the nine-tenths of the papal 
world ! If it were merely unmeaning, without be- 
ing blasphemous and wicked, I could extend to it 
some toleration. 

And the absurdity of the whole thing is increased 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 69 

to intensity by the fact that the pantomime is per- 
formed in Latin ! Pray, Sir, how many of your 
worshippers at St. Patrick's understand English, not 
to say Latin ? Why use a language, now no longer 
spoken by any nation or people, which is now sim- 
ply a medium of intercourse among scholars 1 The 
answer given to this question by Challoner, is one 
of the most cool insults that I have ever known of- 
fered to the common sense of the world. Here it 
is: — 1. Because it is her ancient language . . . and 
the church, which hates novelty, desires to celebrate 
her liturgy in the same language ; — 2. For a great- 
er uniformity in public worship ; that a papist, 
wherever he wanders, may witness the ceremonies 
of the mass in the same language ; — 3. To avoid 
the changes to which all vulgar languages are ex- 
posed. He also tells us that it is unnecessary to 
understand what we are saying, if our hearts are 
only sincere ! Sir, I see not how men who offer, or 
receive such statements as reasons, can have the 
faculty of understanding a reason. Because the 
ritual of the Mass was first formed in Latin ; be- 
cause Mass was first said in Latin at Rome, the ha- 
tred of your church to novelty forbids her to change 
the language of her ritual, when there is not a con- 
gregation on earth that can understand it ! And it 
is not necessary to understand the language in which 
we address ourselves to God, if we only intend to 
worship him ! And such is the excuse you make 
for the man who may be worshipping a false relic 



70 KIR WAN'S LETTERS 

for a true one. If he only means to honour the true 
relic, it makes no difference ! If he mistakes the 
thigh of Barabbas for that of Barnabas ; or the finger 
of Pilate for that of Peter ; or the hair of Jezebel 
for that of Mary ; or the head of Balaam's ass for 
that of Paul, it is all the same, if he only means to 
worship the true relic ! And I suppose the differ- 
ence, Sir, is very little. 

These things may be very clear to you and to 
your priests, and people ; but to me they are utterly 
without meaning, save a meaning that insults my 
common sense. 

And such is the fact as to your doctrine of Pen- 
ance, and Extreme Unction, which I have already 
examined. I am a sinner. To obtain forgiveness, 
you tell me that I must confess to you — that I must 
perform the penances you enjoin — that I must secure 
absolution from you — and that until all this is done, 
I cannot procure forgiveness. Now I cannot un- 
derstand how this process secures for me what I de- 
sire. I readily understand how, if I confess my sins 
to God, and forsake them, and rest with true faith 
on his Son, I can obtain forgiveness. But your 
doctrine of penance, and its reputed efficacy, are as 
difficult for me to understand as they are contrary 
to the Bible. 

And so as to your Extreme Unction. I am in a 
dying state. The sands in my glass are almost run. 
You come to my dying bed with your little cup of 
olive oil, blessed on Maunday-Thursday. Dipping 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 71 

your thumb in the box, you cross and anoint my 
eyes, my nose, my tongue, my ears, my hands, my 
feet, and when the crossing and anointing is over, I 
am prepared for " the port of eternal happiness. 55 
Now, Sir, after every effort, I cannot understand 
how olive oil produces those effects, if rubbed on 
with both your thumbs, and with all your fingers. 
1 can readily see how the blood of Christ applied to 
my soul in the dying hour by the Holy Spirit, fits it 
for its departure ; but how olive oil, or any other 
oil, rubbed on by your thumb, or poured upon me 
in a deluge, can effect this, is a n^stery utterly be- 
yond my power of solving. 

And to whichsoever of your peculiar doctrines 
or ceremonies I turn, I find the same unmeaning- 
ness in them all. 

I go into your church, St. Patrick 5 s. I go with 
the multitude to the stone basin containing the holy 
water, and dipping my fingers into it, I cross myself 
with the water. This water is made holy by being 
exorcised by the priest, mixed with salt, and then 
prayed over. And I cross myself with it that it 
may defend me from the power of the devil ! Now, 
Sir, all this I cannot understand. The devil is cast 
out of the water — then the water is salted — then it 
is consecrated — and then I am required to sprinkle 
myself with it in order to keep off the devil. I can 
readily see how salt will keep the water from be- 
coming putrid, but how you get Satan out of the wa- 
ter, and how the water can keep Satan away from 



72 kirwan's letters 

me, is beyond my comprehension. And where do 
you get this rite of holy water ? I remember, when 
a boy, seeing the priest on Sunday passing through 
a densely crowded chapel, with two boys carrying 
a tub of holy water before him, and he sprinkling it 
upon the people with something which I then thought 
was a cow's tail. And if that water drove the devil 
out of some of them that I well remember, I would 
like to know how they acted when he was in them. 
If holy water would only produce the effects which 
you attribute to it, I would wish you to give many 
of our countrymen a pretty thorough sprinkling. 

1 find the same difficulty in your doctrine which 
teaches me to pray to the Saints. How Paul or Pe- 
ter can hear me in New-York, and another in Cork, 
praying to them at the same time, passes my com- 
prehension. I am sure poor Mary must have her 
hands full if she attends to all who supplicate her 
favor. I have no doubt that, in the papal world, 
ten pray to her, where one prays to God. 

Nor can I comprehend why, or for what purpose, 
you withhold from me the free use of the Scriptures. 
They are a revelation from God to man — not to 
priests only, but to the race. They are the chart of 
the way to life, and all men are commanded to 
search them. Why not permit, command all men 
to search them ? The shipping merchant furnishes 
his captains with charts of all the seas over which 
they are to sail, and enjoins a constant use of them ; 
and you take from me the chart which God has giv- 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 73 

en me to direct me across the ocean of life, and to a 
safe anchorage beneath the shelter of the Rock of 
Ages. Why is this ? 

My dear Sir, God has given me a mind to under- 
stand his will ; and in revealing his will to me he 
has consulted the intelligence with which he has 
endowed me. He asks of me an intelligent service 
and worship. He requires all men to worship him 
in spirit and in truth. — Your church requires me to 
deny the testimony of my senses — to go contrary to 
the decisions of my reason — to believe, not only 
without, but against, evidence, — to believe in doc- 
trines as true, which common reason pronounces 
absurd, and to submit to ceremonies which would 
seem solemn were they not so ludicrous and farci- 
cal. I believe it is Thomas Aquinas, who proves 
the duty of inferiors to submit to superiors in the 
church, from the very pertinent passage in Job, 
" the oxen were ploughing and the asses feeding be- 
side them." And whilst I have no objection to your 
bishops and priests considering themselves oxen, I 
prefer, on the whole, a religion, to believe and prac- 
tice which, does not require me to be turned into a 
donkey. 

With great respect, yours, 

Kirwan. 



74 kirwan's letters 



LETTER VIII. 

The destiny of the Papacy— Its growth— Its history not yet written— The 
Reformation — Reasons for the extinction of popery — 1. Incapable of re- 
formation — 2. Its reformation impossible — 3. Opposed by the intelli 
gence of the world — 4. By its piety. — 5. The causes which gave it origin 
passing away — 6. Jts extinction ordained — 7. How it is to be done. 

My Dear Sir : — In my last letter I brought to a 
close the chief objections which prevent my return 
to your church. As they bear, at least, upon my 
own mind, you and all men will say that they are 
insurmountable. If I have misstated any of your 
doctrines — if I have magnified any of their absurdi 
ties — I have done it ignorantly. And if I have uttered 
a sentence that could have been avoided in the discus- 
sion, and that can be interpreted as personally offen- 
sive or disrespectful to yourself, I regret it. I feel 
proud of you as a countryman ; I sincerely respect 
your character ; and the only feeling in my soul in 
reference to you is, one of deep, I might almost say, 
agonizing regret, that you should lend your talents, 
character, and influence to the sustaining of such a 
system of delusion as is popery, which I deem equal- 
ly si£ war with the Bible and with the common sense 
and best interests of men. However much or little 
value you place on this avowal, it is made in sincer- 
ity. In the present letter, which will close those 
addressed to you personally, I will ask your atten- 



KIR WAN'S LETTERS 75 

tion to some considerations hearing on the ultimaU 
destiny of your church. 

The growth of your church has been like that of 
the mustard seed— small in its beginning, but grad- 
ually unfolding, until its branches overshadowed the 
world. It took centuries, and generations of men 
endowed with all the deceivableness of an unright- 
eous policy, to perfect its despotic unity. Corrup- 
tion was introduced so gradually as to create nc 
general alarm. And the truth of God was so mixed 
up with the traditions of men, as to take away the 
power of the truth, and as to rivet upon the world 
the traditions of men as the commandments of God; 
and the whole system was so adapted to the tenden- 
cies of our fallen nature, as to gain easy access for 
it into barbarous and semi-civilized states. From 
being an ally of the state, it rose to the government 
of the state. It put out, first, the lights of civil, and 
then of religious liberty. By it kings reigned, and 
princes decreed judgment. And by the silent and 
gradual deposit of corruption and power, your church 
rose, a vast form and complicated, of superstition. 
error, and tyranny, shutting out the light of heaver. 
from the mind, and the hope of heaven from the soul, 
and filling the world with the gloom and terror of its 
despotism. O, Sir, the history of your church, from 
the seventh to the seventeenth century, is yet un- 
written. Much has been revealed, but the one-half 
has not been told us. Nor will man ever know, un- 
til the day of final revealing, a tithe of the miseries 



76 TO BISHOP HUGHES. 

and woes which it has inflicted on our race. When 
the pall of darkness which now conceals them will 
be drawn aside, and when in all their crimson hues 
they will be exposed to the gaze of a collected uni- 
verse — when the martyrs from the " Alpine Moun- 
tains cold " — and from the vales of Piedmont — and 
from the dungeons of the Inquisitions — when the Hu- 
guenots of France, and slaughtered Protestants of the 
isles and the continents shall all rise up and testify 
against her, where can popes, prelates, and priests 
then find a hiding place ? The rocks and mountains, 
disregarding their cries, will not fall upon them, nor 
hide them from the face of an angry God. 

The world bore the burden of the despotism of 
your church until it could be borne no longer. The 
Reformation ensued ; and because God was in it, the 
combined efforts of popes, emperors, kings, and pre- 
lates failed to arrest it. All the elements of super- 
stition, and depravity, and selfishness, and cupidity, 
and of civil and ecclesiastical power, were moved to 
their deep foundations, and were combined with un- 
surpassed skill to suppress it, but in vain. The na- 
tions broke the heavy yoke which your church had 
placed upon their necks, and indignantly cast it 
away. And from that day until this, the conflict 
has continued between Protestantism and Popery — 
between the law of Christian liberty and of Papal 
thraldom — between the principles of an open Bible, 
and the free access of the soul to God through a Me- 
diator, and of a closed Bible, and the religion of sac- 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. i~ 

raments, and ceremonies, and priestly interferences 
without meaning, measure, or end. It must be con- 
fessed, that in this conflict your church has retained 
its ground with great art and skill, and that after 
three hundred years of hard fighting it yet is in the 
field, and with a fearful array. But what is her des- 
tiny ? Is she to rise again to her former power, and 
to tread out the liberty of the world, and to send us 
all to school again to muttering monks, and to open 
hell to all who decline her authority, and to admit to 
heaven only those whose great faith or great igno- 
rance receives all that she teaches ? Sir, I have no 
fear of this. I am most firmly persuaded that your 
church is destined to total extinction. And permit 
me, in the briefest manner, to state to you a few of 
the reasons which sustain me in this belief. 

1. Your church is incapable of reformation. 
What may be reformed may be preserved : but the 
diseased body that allows no purgatives to remove 
its fever, and no stimulants to quicken its decaying 
organs, must die. And your church is just such a 
body. Because infallible, it has never fallen into 
error in doctrine or in practice. So that what it once 
believes and commands is always true, and is always 
binding. Infallibility forbids reformation. Here, 
then, is the position which it holds before the world — 
an infallible church — its sense and nonsense equally 
true and important — and because infallible, incapa- 
ble of reformation ! And, in my opinion, it is well 
it is so. This very position will hasten its overthrow. 
7* 



78 kirwan's letters 

How soon were the waters of the sea made the wind- 
ing-sheet of the Pharaoh that, amid the wonders 
which were wrought around him, refused to lessen 
the burdens of Jacob and to let Israel go ! Old Bax- 
ter was in the habit of saying, " What will not bend 
must be broken." 

2. Even if the doctrine of your church permitted 
reformation, any reformation is impossible, save that 
which ends in its extinction. I refer, of course, to a 
reformation of your system, and not to that of indi- 
viduals. How can your doctrine as to the pope's 
supremacy be reformed, save by its utter abandon- 
ment ? How reform your transubstantiation — your 
purgatory — your penance — your extreme unction — 
your praying to dead men and women — your relic 
worship ? No reformation of these things is possible. 
How can they be re-formed ? If they cannot be, 
they must be abandoned ; and if abandoned, where 
is your church ? Gone, like the fabric of a vision, 
which leaves not a wreck behind. And again, I say, 
it is well that it is so ; these things will hasten its 
overthrow. 

3. The intelligence of the world is in opposition 
to your church. The mind of man, wherever en- 
lightened, and permitted to act freely, is opposed to 
it. The most enlightened, the most commercial na- 
tions, are anti-papal. The literature of the world is 
against it. The genius of history is revealing its 
past wickedness ; the genius of romance is holding 
it up to ridicule by its magic creations ; the genius 



/'c 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 79 

of poetry is rehearsing its cruelties in undying song. 
Nor do I now remember a living apologist for popery 
out of the ranks of your priesthood, worth naming, 
save Chateaubriand, whose eloquent work, " Genie 
du Christianisme," is much more of a romance than 
a serious apology for your system. And all this 
whilst the historian — the poet — the novelist — the es- 
sayist — the penny-a-liner — the grave quarterly — the 
lighter monthly— the laughing weekly, are out irr 
opposition to it. 

4. The prayers and the piety of the world are 
against it. I assert this as a rule which has its ex- 
ceptions — exceptions within the pale of your own 
church, where, I believe, in spite of your system, 
there are some of whom the world is not worthy. 
But from tens of thousands of hearts, in every land 
upon which the sun shines, the prayer is daily as- 
cending to heaven that popish superstition may come 
to a perpetual end. And God is a prayer-hearing 
God. 

5. The causes which gave rise to your church 
are rapidly passing away. Popery, you know, for 
the most part, rose in times of great ignorance. As 
the art of printing was unknown, the Bible was but 
little circulated. It required almost a lifetime to 
transcribe it, and a large fortune to purchase it. 
Hence your priests could teach almost any thing for 
divine truth, because the people had no Bible by 
which to test their teaching. And having enormous- 
ly multiplied, for doctrines, the commandments of 



80 kirwa;. :;rs 

men. it became your settled policy, as far as possi- 
ble, to suppress the free use of the Bible. This is 
all over with you ; and the Bible will be soon in 
even- living language and among all people. And 
the ignorance of those ages in which the foundations 
of your church were laid is passing away. The 
schoolmaster is going into all the earth ; and, with 
an instructed mind and an open Bible, the priest will 
not be long endured as a substitute for the preacher, 
nor the saying of mass for the proclamation of the 
glorious gospel of salvation. Despotic governments, 
too, which lent the power of the state to the pii 
to assist him in riveting the chains of bondage on 
the people, are becoming more free. In many na- 
tions they have passed, in many more they are pass- 
ing, away. The old feudal system and pope ry form- 
ed the upper and the nether millstone, in the mill 
in which the people were ground down to the state 
requisite to suit your purposes. One of these stones, 
the feudal system, is broken. It will require all 
your wits to go on grinding with the other. 

In addition to all this, intercourse among the na- 
tions is rapidly increasing. By the power of steam 
the most distant people are made neighbors; and 
by the application of magnetism the thoughts of men 
are made to travel round the earth, with a vek [ 
far surpassing that of the sun. That stagnation of 
mind, and of the mass, which is the true element of 
popery, as of all superstition, is broken up ; and at 
the prospect of a steam engine whistling through 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 81 

Italy on a railway, the papal world is alarmed. And 
thus the causes which gave rise to your church, and 
whose continuance for so many ages enabled it to 
maintain its fearful pre-eminence, are rapidly pass- 
ing away. It would seem as if, for the last four hun- 
dred years, every thing was operating against her. 
The sacking of Constantinople — the discovery of the 
art of printing, and of the mariner's compass, and of 
this new world— the Reformation by Luther — the 
firmness and the weakness of princes — the periods 
of war and peace — the passing away of old and the 
rise of new dynasties — the virtues and the vices of 
popes, prelates, and priests — their learning and their 
ignorance — bloody and bloodless revolutions — the 
pragmatic sanction of Charles VII. — the revocation 
of the Edict of Nantz, by Louis XIV. — the irrup- 
tions of infidelity, and the revivals of true religion, 
all, all have been directed by the hand of God, so as 
to weaken the foundations, and as to hasten the de- 
sired period of her final fall. 

6. And more than all this, it is my strong convic- 
tion that God has ordained the total extinction of your 
church. I will not detain you, Sir, nor my readers, 
with any dissertations upon the prophecies bearing 
on this point — this would be aside from my object. 
John, when wrapt in vision in Patmos, informs us 
that Babylon " shall be utterly burned with fire," 
and calls upon God's people to "come out of her," 
that they might not be partakers of her sins, nor re- 
oeive of her plagues. And Paul tells us that the 



62 KIR WAN'S LETTERS 

Lord shall consume " that wicked " with the spirit 
of his mouth, and destroy him with the brightness of 
his rising. And by " Babylon/*' and " that wicked," 
I believe Paul and John mean the papal church. It 
has already lost its civil power. Once she could 
dethrone kings, and absolve subjects from their alle- 
giance : now, in a civil point of view, there is no 
weaker power upon earth. Metternich can send his 
Austrian troops into the States of the Church without 
fearing the least injury from the successor of Greg- 
ory the Great ! How is the mighty fallen ! Ronge 
in Germany, excited to opposition by the impositions 
of the holy coat of Treves, has led out one hundred 
thousand from the yoke of your church ; and all that 
his Holiness can do is, to bear it. Even in the city 
of New-York, the resolute Germans are flocking out 
from the care of Holy Mother ; and all that you can 
do is, to flourish your crook, your keys, and your 
crosier around the altar of St. Patrick's, without the 
least power to stop one of the wandering sheep. The 
temporal power of your church is gone ; the spirit- 
ual is fast going after it. And the time will soon be 
here, when the pen of the historian will write, The 
Church of Rome was, but is not. 

How this is to be done, is a question of some im- 
portance, and upon which I have my own opinions. 
A careful looking at past providences may cast some 
light upon the future, and inspire hope or fear, ac- 
cording to the relation we sustain to God and his 
church. You know, Sir, the way in which God 



/6 

TO BISHOP HUGHES. 83 

treated Pharaoh, and the Canaanites, and how he 
blotted out the nations that opposed the progress of 
his people. You know the way and manner in 
which he broke up the Jewish church and state, for 
their opposition to Christ and his church ! You 
know how the Reformation progressed, from small 
beginnings, until it opened a new epoch in the world's 
history — from what was considered a little ecclesias- 
tical gladiatorship, until kingdoms were shaken — 
until thrones, cemented by ages, were convulsed and 
tottered to their base — until hostile armies met in 
deadly combat, and fattened the earth with the blood 
of the Papist and the Protestant. God has the con- 
trol of all agencies to accomplish his will. Much 
will be done for the extinction of your church by 
education — much by the general influence of learn- 
ing — much, very much by the circulation of the 
Bible — much more by the simple and fervent preach- 
ing of the gospel to the masses, as did Luther — and 
much by the direct agency of Him, in whose sight 
the nations are as a drop in the bucket, and who will 
overturn and overturn, until He shall come whose 
right it is to reign. 

These, Rev. Sir, are in brief my reasons for be- 
believing that your church is destined to utter ex- 
tinction. No reasons can be drawn for its future 
continuance, from its continuance until now. If 
your people had not been papists, they might have 
been pagans or infidels. The Canaanites remained 
a long time in the land to perplex the Jews. Pagan- 



84 kirwan's letters 

ism continued for ages in the Roman world, after its 
conversion to Christianity. Yet both became ex- 
tinct, save as paganism has been perpetuated by your 
people. Nor can any argument be drawn from the 
occasional conversions to your communion which 
are now occurring. You know that in ages past 
some Christian ministers relapsed into idolatry ; and 
that during the French Revolution some of your 
bishops, and many of your priests, went over to in- 
fidelity. You must lay no flattering unction to your 
soul from arguments like these. Your church is 
opposed to the truth of God — to the people of God — 
to the will of God. The shed blood of the martyrs 
is crying to heaven against it. Its extinction is cer- 
tain ; and may God hasten it, in his own time and 
way. 

With the most sincere prayers for your temporal 
and eternal welfare, I remain, with great respect, 
Your fellow-countryman and fellow-sinner, 

Kir wan. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 85 



LETTER IX. 

To all, and especially to American, Roman Catholics : 

My dear Friends, — Having addressed a series' 
of letters to one of your most celebrated and excel- 
lent bishops in this country, the Right Reverend 
John Hughes, of New York, candidly stating the 
reasons which induced me to abandon the Roman 
Catholic Church, and which prevent my return to 
it, I desire, before I lay aside my pen, perhaps never 
to be resumed on this subject, to address myself to 
you. And I turn from the bishop to you, for vari- 
ous reasons, some of which I desire in the briefest 
manner to state. 

1. Whilst entirely honest, I believe you to be a 
people deluded by your priests. They have taken 
from you the Bible — they forbid you to reason on 
the subject of religion — they have filled your minds 
with prejudices against all who resist or question 
their authority — they have imposed upon you for 
doctrines the commandments of men — and they have 
impressed upon you the belief that with them is the 
power to admit or to exclude you from heaven. In 
stating these things I say what I do know, and what 
you know. With me it is no theory, for I have felt 
it all. 

2. I believe you to be a people impoverished and 

8 



a 



86 kirwan's letters 

degraded by your priests. The reasons for mj 
opinion on this subject are stated in the preceding 
letters. Ignorance being the parent of papal devo- 
tion, the priests have shut out from you the light of 
knowledge. Ignorance begets vice, and vice is the 
parent of poverty. Or if ignorance begets not vice, 
it is the rank soil in which superstition attains its 
most magnificent growth. And which most de- 
grades a people, vice or superstition, it is not worth 
the while to inquire. I verily believe it impossible 
to be a true papist without sinking the man. 

3. I believe that the papal world need look for 
no redress of grievances, for no true reformation, 
from its prelates or priests. The history of the 
world, and the history of the church, and the prin- 
ciples of human nature, forbid us to entertain the 
idea. How few and far between, the instances in 
which despotic kings, or rulers, of their own accord, 
retrenched their expenditures to relieve the burdens 
of" their subjects, or yielded their usurped rights to 
increase the liberty of their people. And what of 
civil liberty the nations possess, has cost the people 
ages of contest with tyrants, and rivers of blood. 

And when have high ecclesiastics ever led the 
way in salutary reformation ? Not at the advent of 
Jesus Christ. It was the High Priest that sat in 
Moses' seat, and his subordinates that nailed to the 
cross the Lord of glory. It was the commission of 
the high priest to persecute the dissenters at Damas- 
cus from the order established at Jerusalem, that 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 87 

Saul of Tarsus carried in his pocket, when he was 
arrested by heaven. The Reformers of the six- 
teenth century, whom your priests delight to dis- 
honor, but yet who have given civil and religious 
liberty to the world, were hunted, as by bloodhounds, 
by the high ecclesiastics of their day. Every religious 
reform of permanent utility, and in every land upon 
which the sun shines, has been in consequence of 
the united action of the people. There occurs not 
to me now an instance to the contrary. 

It is not in human nature to surrender power once 
possessed — nor to give up a gainful traffic — nor, for 
the sake of benefiting or enriching the mass, to 
yield up privileges. Grace leads to many sacrifices 
to do good to men ; but nature holds on to the privi- 
leges of order, station, cast, however they may bear 
upon the people ; and if ever the people are freed 
from them, it must be by their own acts. Roman 
Catholics ! you have nothing to expect from your 
priests, but the perpetuation of their bad dominion 
over your mind and conscience ; and their vigilant 
and united efforts to crush every man, and every 
influence, that would weaken it. The principles 
of your church forbid its reformation — a true refor- 
mation would be the end of it — there is no alterna- 
tive for you but to abandon it. 

These are the reasons, Roman Catholics, why I 
turn to you, and why I would implore you, by all 
that is to be desired in a mind free to think, — in a 
soul free to love and to act, — free in its access to 



88 kirwan's letters 

God without priestly taxes and interferences ; — by 
all that is to be desired in the social and religious 
elevation of your children, and in the moral regen- 
eration of your race, to rise, and to fling from 
around you the chains forged in the dark ages, and 
with which priests would bind you to their footstools 
in this age of light. 

You must remember that your position in these 
United States is very different from what is that of 
those yet living in the papal countries of Europe. 
Here you are free to think, and act for yourselves. 
In Ireland you might be afraid of the priest's whip, 
or of his cursing you from the altar. I have seen 
myself a priest whip a man in the street ; and I 
have heard the same priest curse the same man from 
the altar. But, here, his whip has no terror, and 
his curses are harmless. 

And, then, as to those of you from Ireland, you 
are in a very different position, as to the Protestant 
community, from what you were at home. Protes- 
tants here are your friends. You are not taxed 
to support a religion you hate. Your cow or your 
pig are not driven from your door to pay your tithes. 
There is nothing here to chafe your mind, or to irri- 
tate your feelings, or to give cause to your priests 
for fiery appeals to your passions. Whatever may 
be the feelings of wicked men towards you, there is 
not a pious Protestant in the land that would not do 
you good, and that would not interpose to protect 
you from wrong. So that the hostile feelings to- 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 89 

wards Protestants which had an excuse in Ireland, 
have no excuse here. If you wish to think for 
yourselves there are thousands to defend you ; — and 
if, on examination, you think as I do about popery, 
and quit the church, you have nothing to fear from 
priestly anathemas hurled at you, or after you, from 
the altar ; nor from an ignorant rabble that would 
persecute you as an apostate. 

There is one point, my friends, to which I would 
direct your special attention. From your cradle 
you have been taught to regard your priests as pos- 
sessing peculiar spiritual powers which you resist at 
your peril. And in every way and form they seek 
to impress you with the belief that they possess such 
powers, and that their communication with heaven 
is beyond that of ordinary mortals. Now this is an 
old device, and one that is practiced very widely 
for the purpose of awing the common and vulgar 
mind. Thus did the ancient priests of Egypt, who 
taught the people to worship the sun, the cow, the 
cat, and the snake. Thus do the priests of Brahma 
at the present day. Some of them, by their pre- 
tended intercourse with heaven, have become so holy 
that the people consider the water in which they 
wash their feet holy, and seek to be sprinkled with 
it with intense earnestness. The Calmucs believe 
in a priesthood, all of which is united in Lama, who 
is absorbed in deity. The old Romans had their 
priests, and their oracles, that were regarded as 
knowing and declaring the mind of the gods. Their 
8* 



73 

90 kirwan's letters 

power over the people was immense. And when 
pagan Rome became papal it was a point greatly 
desired to retain the power of the pagan priest over 
the people in the hands of the papal. It was 
attained : and it has been retained. And the power 
claimed by your priests for the better subjecting you 
to their yoke, is the power claimed by all the priests 
of heathenism and Mahometanism. and for the very 
same purpose. It is the claim of fanatics and im- 
postors in all climes and among all people. And 
whether set up on the banks of the Ganges, or of 
the Tiber ; — on the shores of the Bosphorus, or on 
the banks of the Hudson, its object is to exalt the 
priest that he may govern the people. Your priests 
have no more power with God than any good man 
in the land. — nor as much, unless they are equally 
pious. If not pious and sincere, they are simply 
impostors, who make a living by their traffic in 
your souls. 

Once secure a just and scriptural view of the 
character of a true minister of Christ, and of the 
great end of a gospel ministry, and the whole frame- 
work of popery vanishes. The end of the gospel 
ministry is. to hold up a crucified Christ as God's 
great remedy for the sins, and guilt, and woes of our 
race, and so to expound the moral state of the sin- 
ner, and the adaptedness of the work of Christ to 
that state, as to lead him to see that his only hope of 
life is in the cross, and then to beseech him, in Christ's 
stead, to be reconciled to God. This being the end 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 91 

of the ministry, a true minister is one, who, with the 
love of God and of the salvation of men filling his 
soul, goes out into all the ways which providence 
opens before him, preaching every where, as did 
Peter and Paul, " repentance towards God, and faith 
in our Lord Jesus Christ. 5 ' He has only one ob- 
ject — to lead men to the knowledge of the truth. He 
carries no wafers to convert into Christs ; he makes 
no pretensions to the power of regenerating souls by 
baptizing them; he calls not upon men to confess to 
him, but to God ; he has no unmeaning masses to 
mutter ; no relics to sell ; no unmeaning rites to en- 
join ; no olive oil, or holy salt, or holy water, to drive 
away demons. He goes out, wearing no sacerdotal 
garments to astonish the vulgar, with an open Bible 
to expound it, praying that the Holy Ghost may so 
apply its truths to the hearts of his hearers that they 
may be created anew in Christ Jesus unto good 
works. To those who believe, he administers the 
rite of baptism ; and as God gives him opportunity, 
he administers the Lord's supper to the faithful, for 
the purpose of commemorating the death of Christ, 
until he comes the second time, without sin, unto 
salvation. Such were the ministers of Christ before 
the rise of popery ; and such only are the true min- 
isters of Christ now. If so, will you bear the impo- 
sitions of your priests an hour longer ? 

There is one other point to which I would direct 
your special attention, because it is one upon which 
you have been greatly deceived : I mean the church. 



92 kirwan's letters 

Every effort has been put forth by your priests to 
mystify this topic, and to deceive you in reference 
to it. All who truly believe in Jesus Christ, and 
practice the precepts of his word, are reconciled to 
God. They are adopted into the family of God — 
they are the sons and daughters of the Lord Al- 
mighty. A connexion of such with any branch of 
the visible church, does not interfere with their con- 
nexion with the family of God. No good man is lost, 
and no bad man is saved, because of their connexion 
with any church. As a man may be a true Papist 
and be a Jesuit, or a Jansenist, or a monk of La 
Trappe, or a shorn friar, so he may be a true Chris- 
tian, and a member both of the visible and invisible 
church, and be a Protestant or a Papist, and a mem- 
ber of any of the sects into which they are both di- 
vided, which hold to the true atonement of Jesus 
Christ. But you will ask, Have you no preference 
for one branch of the church above another ? I have. 
You ask again, What branch is it ? That in which 
the most truth and the least error, the most simpli- 
city and the least pompousness, exist. Of course, 
the very last branch I would select would be, the 
papal ; and in the Protestant church, the very last 
branch I would select is, that which is most like the 
papal. The true unity of the church is unity in the 
truth, and union to Christ. 

Right views of the ministry of Christ, and of the 
church of Christ, in one hour, blow the whole fabric 
of popery into the air. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 93 

In this appeal to you, Roman Catholics, I am no 
interested party. It would not be a cent in my 
pocket if every man of you were to abandon the 
pope to-morrow ; nor will it be a cent out of it if 
every man of you continue to believe that your 
priests can turn a wafer into Christ — and regenerate 
you by baptism — and absolve you from your sins — 
and get you admission to heaven, by rubbing you 
with olive oil, when dying. Can Bishop Hughes, or 
your priests say this ? Why, then, you ask, this so- 
licitude about us ? On these accounts : I know you 
to be deceived, and I desire you to be undeceived. 
I know that you are led to place dependence on rites 
and ceremonies, for a preparation for the life to 
come, which give no such preparation. I know that 
you are robbed of your money, for services that only 
tend to degrade you — that you are deprived of the 
dearest rights of man, an open Bible, and free ac- 
cess to God, for yourselves, without any saintly or 
priestly attorneys to plead for you. I see you ham- 
pered and fettered on every hand. By telling the 
priest every thing you do, you put your peace and 
liberty into his hands. You cannot read the Bible 
without his license, and be a good Catholic. You 
cannot retain your standing, and read any book 
which he prohibits, or fail in any duty which he en- 
joins. You cannot bow your knee before God, with 
a Protestant, around his family altar, without the 
terror of a severe penance when you next go to con- 
fession. I see you freemen, in a land of freedom, 



94 KIR WAN'S LETTERS 

and yet the veriest slaves that tread the soil, because 
your minds and souls are in fetters. I see you a 
noble people, yielding a degrading homage to men 
that deceive you, and sustaining, even in your pov- 
erty, with a princely liberality, institutions that de- 
grade you. And I desire, with an irrepressible 
desire, to see you the subjects of the perfect law of 
liberty with which Christ makes his people free. 
These, my friends, are the reasons of my solicitude 
about you. 

However I feel towards the system of popery, or 
towards the priests of the system, there is but one 
feeling and one desire in my heart towards you : 
that feeling is one of affection and interest — and that 
desire is, that you may be emancipated from a sys- 
tem of superstition and spiritual despotism, as de- 
grading and grinding as any that God has ever per- 
mitted to exist. 

With great respect, yours, 

Kir wan. 



IV BISHOP HUGHES. 95 



LETTER X. 

Conclusion. The Indian devotee — Faith in Christ saves — The dying thief 
— Peter at the feast of Pentecost — The plan of Salvation — The Gospel 
and Papal way of Salvation contrasted — A call upon Irish Roman Cath- 
olics. 

My dear Friends, — But a few years since a 
Christian minister in India, in the pursuit of the 
objects of his holy mission, met with a Hindoo 
devotee. A noonday sun was pouring its burning 
rays from a burning sky, upon the burning sands 
on which the meeting took place. From its heat the 
devotee had no protection save the piece of cloth 
which hung around his loins. He wore a pair of 
sandals pierced with iron nails, which, at every step, 
penetrated the muscles and nerves which are so 
wonderfully collected and interwoven in the soles of 
the feet. His sandals were filled with his blood, 
which marked his every footstep. He was an object 
frightful to behold — his body blistered by the sun, 
his hair clotted with filth hanging around his head, 
his feet swollen, bleeding and painful, almost re- 
fusing to move. The missionary asked him why 
he wore those sandals, and why he subjected him- 
self to such intense suffering ? He replied, that he 
had committed great sins which were greatly offen- 
sive to the gods, and that in order to secure the for- 
giveness of those sins he wore those sandals, and 
cheerfully submitted to all his sufferings. 



96 kirwan's letters 



Filled with compassion for the deluded man, the 
minister of God told him that he could show him 
way in which he could secure the forgiveness of 
his great sins without those sandals, and without 
subjecting himself to such terrible sufferings. " Is 
there such a way, and if so, what is it ?" exclaimed 
the devotee, with the most intense interest. " There 
is such a way,'"' replied the missionary; and taking 
his Bible, he read to him and expounded the follow- 
ing passage : " For God so loved the world that he 
gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth 
in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." 
John 3 : 16. He told the poor deluded man of the 
sins of men — of the love of God in giving his Son 
to die for the sins of those who should believe on 
him — of the birth, and sufferings, and death, of 
Jesus Christ — and he especially dwelt upon this one, 
great, glorious, and scriptural idea, that he that be- 
lieves on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. The 
devotee heard with amazement. He believed. He 
rejected the false religion of his fathers, though 
sanctioned by a thousand ages. He renounced sub- 
jection to his priests and their traditions. He flung 
from him his nailed and bloody sandals, by walking 
in which he supposed he was saving his soul by the 
tortures of his body. He received Christian bap- 
tism at the hands of the man of God that taught 
him the more excellent way, and lived and died in 
the faith and hope of the Gospel. 

In many respects your circumstances, Roman 



he 
i a 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 97 

Catholics, widely differ from what were those of this 
Hindoo devotee. You live in a land, and in an a^e 
of light. You form parts of a great community, 
which is penetrated in every direction by moral and 
religious influences. And yet in many respects 
your circumstances are like unto his. You are de- 
luded by priests — you believe in their ghostly power, 
and your soul submits to it — you are looking to your 
confessions, and penances, and austerities, for salva- 
tion — you are excluded from the light of the Bible 
— with all simplicity and honesty you pray to saints, 
and to the virgin ; and perform all that is laid upon 
you by your father confessor, and in this way, 
through the religion of the priest, and not through 
the religion of the gospel, you hope to get to heaven. 
But you are deceived. Your hopes are honest, but 
they are built upon a wrong foundation. It is not 
by doing, or suffering, but by believing, that we can 
attain unto the salvation of the soul. " He that be- 
lieveth on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved, and 
he that believeth not shall be damned." " He that 
believeth on the Son hath life." Roman Catholics! 
my brethren and kinsmen according to the flesh, 
follow, then, the example of the Hindoo devotee. 
Give up your beads, and your Agnus Dei — your 
penances and ritual observances — your crosses, 
your confessions to men, and your holy water ; and 
go to your Bibles and to the Saviour of the Bible. 
What all your rites and observances can never 
accomplish, simple faith in Jesus Christ accom- 
9 



01 

98 kirwan's letters 



plishes, and in the moment faith fixes itself upon a 
crucified Christ. 

That you may see this clearly, permit me to state 
to you another incident. When our Lord was put 
to death, the wicked Jews, the more deeply to de- 
grade him, caused him to be crucified between two 
thieves. One of these saw, in the convulsions of 
nature around him, the evidences of the divinity of 
Him who was hanging by his side on the cross ; and 
whilst his companion in wickedness derided and blas- 
phemed, he cried out from the depths of a convicted 
and believing soul unto Jesus, " Lord, remember me 
when thou comest in thy kingdom." The following 
is the reply of the Saviour : " To-day shalt thou be 
with me in paradise." Here, you see, my friends, 
are no penances — no prayers to saints — no holy wa- 
ter — no olive oil, blessed on Maunday-Thursday — 
no purgatory ; it is simply faith in Jesus Christ, then 
death, and then paradise, which is only another name 
for heaven ! What was it that opened heaven to this 
dying thief, and gave him admission to its happy 
mansions, as one of the redeemed of the Lord ? It 
was simply faith in Jesus Christ. " He that believ- 
eth in the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved." And 
the faith which opened heaven to the dying thief, 
will open it to you. Faith is the key which opens hea- 
ven to your souls, and not baptism, nor the eucharist, 
nor penance, nor extreme unction. Give up, then, 
your crosses and your pictures, and your depend- 
ence upon saints and sacraments, and go to Jesus 






TO BISHOP HUGHES. 99 

Christ for yourselves — with true hearts say, " Lord, 
I believe, help thou my unbelief," and life, eternal 
life is yours. 

That you may see this clearly, permit me to state 
yet another incident. The Apostle Peter never said 
a mass in his life — he never changed a wafer into 
the body and blood of Christ — he never sent a poor 
sinner to pray to a saint or virgin — he never went 
into a little box, or a dark room, to hear confession. 
He was a simple, warm-hearted preacher, and, in 
his day, labored to impress upon the minds of men 
these two truths — that Jesus Christ was the promised 
Messiah, and that all that believed in him would be 
saved. Now, we learn from the second chapter of 
the Acts of the Apostles, that Peter preached to the 
multitudes assembled at Jerusalem to keep the feast 
of Pentecost, with great power. He mightily con- 
vinced them, from the Scriptures, that God had 
made the Jesus whom they crucified both Lord and 
Christ. Convicted of their deep sinfulness, by his 
powerful preaching, and by the Holy Spirit, multi- 
tudes crowd around him, asking, " What shall we 
do to be saved ?" What does he say in reply ? 
Does he tell them to go to confession — or to do pen- 
ance — or to fast on Lent, or on Fridays ? Does he 
send them to the saints, to ask their intercession ? 
Nothing like this. What, then, does he say ? " Re- 
pent, and be baptized, everyone of you, in the name 
of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall 
receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." They obeyed ; 



100 ESWANS LETTERS 

that is, they forsook their sins — they believed in Je- 
sus Christ — they were baptized in his name — and 
on that occasion three thousand souls were added to 
the church. 

My dear Roman Catholic friends, I once suffered 
just as you now do, because of my utter ignorance 
as to the way of forgiveness with God. I was taught 
all about confession, and confirmation, and penance, 
and saints'" days, and fastings, and holy water, and 
saying " Hail Mary."' I looked upon the priest as 
the door-keeper of heaven, without whose permission 
there was no admittance. But I knew nothing about 
the Bible, and was taught nothing about the work of 
Christ for the sinner, nor about the work of the Spi- 
rit in him. In great mercy, and in the way stated 
in my letters to Bishop Hughes, I became a reader 
of the Bible ; and to my utter amazement, I found 
there taught, with perfect plainness, the way of sal- 
vation, which the priest had wrapped up in mystery 
inextricable. The wayfaring man, though a fool, 
may understand the way in which a soul may be 
saved, as taught in the Bible — it is beyond the com- 
prehension of Gabriel, as taught by your priests. Do 
any of you ask, as did the heathen jailer of Philippi, 
when terrified by the effects of the crashing earth- 
quake, " What shall I do to be saved V Permit 
me, as a friend, who has no object in view but your 
temporal and eternal good, to place before you what 
I regard as the scriptural answer to this momentous 
question. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 101 

1. You must feel that you are a sinner, exceed- 
ingly, in the sight of God. The Bible teaches us 
that we are sinners by nature and by practice. It 
is one thing to believe this — it is another to feel it. 
You must feel it. No man ever sends for a physi- 
cian until he feels that he is sick. The people to 
whom Peter preached never asked what they should 
do to be saved, until " they were pricked in their 
heart."' 

2. You must feel and know that there is no way 
of securing the pardon of your sins, but through the 
redemption there is in Christ Jesus. We are ex- 
pressly taught, " there is no other name under hea- 
ven given among men whereby we must be saved." 
Acts iv. 12. This is an idea that your mind must 
grasp with all its powers ; and which you are in 
danger of letting slip, because of the way and man- 
ner in which you have been instructed, as to the 
efficacy of sacraments, and priestly manipulations, 
and ritual observances. 

3. You must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. 
This is the end and the sum of all the instructions of 
the New Testament to sinners. This is the com- 
mandment of God, that ye believe in the name of his 
Son. Faith brings you into a living union with 
Christ, for whose sake alone you are accepted and 
saved. 

Here, then, we have the true answer to the ques- 
tion, "What shall I do to be saved ? " You must feel 
that you are a sinner ; and you must feel that none 
9* 



102 kirwan's letters 

but Christ can save you ; and in heart and soul you 
must cordially receive him, as made unto you of 
God wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, 
and redemption. A sense of sin will induce you to 
seek for its remedy. Christ crucified, bearing the 
sins of his people in his own body on the tree, is 
God's remedy for sin. And believing in Christ is 
the application of the remedy. And believing in 
Christ, should you die the very next hour, your soul 
would go, cleansed by his atoning blood, to join the 
general assembly and church of the first-born in 
heaven. 

Need I stop, ere I close this letter, to place in con- 
trast before you the gospel plan of salvation with the 
plan of your priests ? Must not the contrast strike 
yourselves, as you read and ponder ? You ask 
what you must do to be saved ? The priest tells 
you to confess — to do penance — to pray to the 
saints — to keep Lent — to eat no meat on stated days 
— to go to mass — to torture your body. And when 
all this is done, when you come to die you must be 
anointed with olive oil, blessed on Maunday-Thurs- 
day. Nor will this do. You have then to go to 
purgatory, to atone for your venial sins by your own 
suffering, unless you are bought out by the alms and 
suffrages of the faithful, in paying for masses for 
your deliverance ! What a long, and complicated, 
and expensive process ! And after all, there is no 
telling the time when the suffrages of the faithful, or 
the masses of the priests, will secure vour deliver- 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 103 

ance from purgatorial fires ! What a dark and fear- 
ful process ! 

In the face of all this, the gospel declares to you 
that the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin ; and 
that whosoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ 
shall be saved. It offers you a free, a full, a perfect 
salvation, and without any priestly interferences, 
and "without money and without price." 

Can you hesitate a moment between the plan of 
the priest and the plan of the gospel ? The one de- 
bases you as a man — makes you the slave of the 
priest, and cheats you of heaven : the other addresses 
you as a moral and intellectual being — sends you to 
the cross for yourself — gives you free access to God, 
and secures for you eternal life. 

Irish Roman Catholics ! would that I could induce 
you to look at this great subject in the light of the 
Bible. It is intimately connected with your tempo- 
ral and eternal interests, and with the interests of 
unborn generations. When a boy, I often heard, 
and never but with burning indignation, of the ma- 
gistrate, the tool of British power, entering the houses 
of the Irish suspected of disaffection, and tearing 
from its frame the speech of Emmet, made in reply 
to the question of the blood-thirsty judge that tried 
him, " What he had to say, why the sentence of 
death should not be passed against him according to 
law ? " The British ministry felt that that speech 
fostered the spirit of freedom in the Irish bosom, and 
made every man that read it to resolve, at whatever 



> 

104 KIRWAN'S LETTERS 

expense, to be free ; and they destroyed every copy 
of it that could be found, and forbad its publication. 
As my kindred were among the disaffected ones. I 
felt it to the quick, and so feel it yet. And what, 
think you. must be my feelings now, in the vigor of 
my manhood, when I see. in this free land, the de- 
scendants of those who fought at Vinegar Hill, and 
at Tara. permitting individuals calling themselves 
the priests of the religion of God, to enter their 
houses and take away their Bibles, and to forbid them, 
by the terrors of eternity, to think for themselves, 
on the most important of all subjects connected with 
their being ! It is the very feeling that prompted the 
British spies to destroy the speech of Emmet, that 
now prompts your priests to destroy your Bibles. 
The one fostered the spirit of civil, the other of reli- 
gious freedom. The British ministry wished to 
suppress the breathing of your fathers after civil 
liberty : your priests wish to suppress the breathings 
of you, their children, after religious freedom. And 
will you, the sons of noble sires, submit, in a land 
of freedom, to wear the galling chains of spiritual 
bondage ? Will you submit to have these chains 
clanking around you to the grave — and when you 
die to have them bound upon your children, and for 
no earthly purpose but to sustain a priesthood and a 
hierarchy, for whose utter overthrow the civil and 
religious interests of the nations, and the temporal 
and eternal interests of our race, are calling aloud 
to heaven ? 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 105 

»If so, with a slight variation, mine will be the lan- 
guage of the pious Jeremiah, who had the civil and 
the religious welfare of his people equally at heart: 
O that my head were waters, and mine eyes a foun- 
tain of tears, that I might weep day and night for 
the blindness and folly of my people. 

My letters are ended. I commit them to you, 
Roman Catholics, and to the blessing of Almighty 
God. 

With great respect, yours, 

Kirwan. 



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edition, and to assure ministers of the gospel, theological students, and all 
others, that they may have full confidence," &c. 

From Rev, Dr. Spring, JV. Y. 
"I cheerfully concur with Dr. Woods in the recommendation he has 
given Mr. LeaviWs edition of Edwards," &c. 

BARNES NOTES ON JOB. Fourth edition. 2 vols. 12mo. 

This is said to be the best work on the Scriptures ever written by Mr. Barnes. 

BARNES* NOTES ON ISAIAH. 2 vols. 12mo. Cloth. 

ALCOTT'S SABBATH SCHOOL AS IT SHOULD BE. 
12mo. Cloth. 

THE PASTOR'S DAUGHTER. By Louisa Payson. 18mo. 
Cloth. 

COBBETT'S ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN. 18mo. Cloth 
gilt. 

FROISSART'S CHRONICLES OF THE MJDDLE AGES. 
115 elegant engravings. 4to. Cloth. 
A new and beautiful edition, on fine paper. 

D'ISRAELI'S CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE, and the 

Curiosities of American Literature, by Griswold. New 
edition, royal 8vo. Cloth gilt. 

MORRIS & WILLIS'S PROSE AND POETRY of Europe 

and America, Royal 8vo. Cloth. 

NEANDER'S PLANTING AND TRAINING OF THE 
CHURCH. New edition. Price reduced. 8vo. Cloth. 

DE TOCQUEViLLE'S DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 2 
vols. 8vo. 4th edition. Cloih. 

1 



SANDS OF GOLD. An elegant Miniature. 

NAPOLEON AND HIS ARMY. Illustrated with 20 en- 
gravings, the Marshals of France, &c. 8vo. Cloth. 

JONATHAN EDWARDS' SERMONS. Complete in 1 vol 
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GULLIVER'S TRAVELS. New and beautifully illustrated 
edition. With Explanatory Notes, and a Life of Swift by 
Rev. John Mitford. 16mo. Cloth gilt. 

FRANKLIN'S WORKS. New edition. 16mo. Cloth gilt. 

VOLTAIRE'S LIFE OF CHARLES XII. l6mo. do. 

do. do. PETER THE GREAT. 16mo. do. 

LIFE OF JULIUS CESAR. lGmo. Cloth gilt. 

GLIMPSES OF THE DARK AGES. 16mo. Cloth gilt. 

GEMS OF FABLE. 188 beautiful woodcuts. 6mo. Crimsonl 

cloth gilt. 
TELEMACHUS, in English. 2 vols. 16mo. Cloth gilt. 

THE NEW COMPLETE LETTER WRITER. 18mo. 
Halfbd. 

New and popular Book, just published. 

NAPOLEON: 

HIS ARMY AND HIS GENERALS, 

Their unexampled Military Career. With a Sketch of the French Revolution 
by an American, embellished with twenty elegant engravings, illustrative 
of the most striking events in the career of that remarkable man, and full 
length portraits of his heroic generals. An impartial, accurate, and glowing 
description of the Military Career of " Napoleon and his Army." 
One vol. 12mo, cloth gilt. 

Will be published by the middle of October, 

OCEAN SCENES, 

OR THE PERILS AND BEAUTIES OF THE DEEP. 

Being instructive, amusing, and graphic accounts of the most Popular Voyages, 
Remarkable Shipwrecks, Naval Adventures, Hair-breadth Escapes, the 
Whale Fishery, &c. &c, on record. The whole interspersed with numerous 
sketches of Nautical Life, and illustrated by fine engravings. 
One vol. roy. 12mo., cloth gilt. 

2 



NEW LIBRARY. 

LEAVITT, TROW & CO.'S 
LIBRARY OF USEFUL READING. 

The attention of the Public is invited to this series of 
useful read.ng. No series of books better adapted to 
ochool Libraries for real value, and of bo inteXur a 
nature, has ever been issued. They have receTved fhe 
highest commendations of the press. recelv ™ *be 

Large 16mo, elegantly printed, and bound in embossed 
morocco, cloth sides. 

N0 R J,- t r^f ° F *, ABLK 188 ele g a « woodcuts 

Beautiful fables translated from Northcote, Bewick, and others 
No. 2. GLIMPSES OF THE DARK AGES aotben - 

" A book that should be read by every one."-JV. Y. Observer 
The best Life of this great man extant. 

N Voha?re d . 5- LIFE 0F PE TER THE GREAT. 2 vols. By 
JSSAL? WfSh '° read th ' S aUthentic » d be « tif »»y writtea life of th» 

No 6. THE LIFE OF JULIUS CESAR. 12,000 copies 
of this work were sold in England in one month. P 

i n 3\s h rs.^Ai bo ^/rJs whi,e in which we f ° Md -* d -p 

No. 7 FRANKLIN'S WORKS. New edition. Consisting 

ZSn; ssr mora, > and »*-* withers 

No 8. GULLIVERS TRAVELS. By Dean Swift New 
.Mustrated edition. Not " Gulliver's Tmvels " onTy button 

N Si!?T , | " i ELB MACHUS, in English. The Adven- 
tures of I elernachus, the son of Ulysses 2 vols V " Ven 



LEAV1TT, TROW & CO. 

HAVE IN PRESS AND WILL PUBLISH SOON, 
I. 

THE BROAD PENNANT, 

Or a " Cruise in the Gulf" in the United States Flag Ship during the Mexican 
War. 1 vol. 12mo. Illustrated. 

II. 

THE GEM OF THE SEASON, 

FOR 1848. 

Twenty Superb Engravings. 

The most magnificent Annual ever offered to the public. The engravings, 
in point of number and the beauty of the designs, are unsurpassed, and the 
execution by Sartain guarantees the first style of the art. A beautiful portrait 
of the late Thomas Chalmers, D.I)., and Life by Dr. Trumbull, add much to 
the real value of this work. 

III. 

KEIGHTLEY'S SCHOOL HISTORIES. 

Five vols. 12mo. 

KEIGHTLEY'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 2 vols. 
Do. Do. ROME. 

Do. Do. GREECE. 

Do. Do. THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 



L. T. & Co. have just published, 

THE NEW ENGLISH SPELLING BOOK, 

on an entirely new plan. The attention of teachers and all 
others interested in primary education is invited to this book. 

From the New- York Sun. 
" This little book we consider decidedly the best elementary book of our 
language that has ever appeared. It is philosophically simple, and deserves an 
unbounded patronage." 

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